Tuesday Nights alright for fighting

PeteB managed to score a set of Tactical Objective cards from his local independent game store. They had 7 packs in store but didn't think to mention it! suffice to say there were none left by the end of the evening Pete got his. So we decided to have a little crack at the first mission and duly positioned six numbered MDF discs on our board. Pete was trying to make his Wraith Guard work again with the use of a Wraith Seer. I'd decided to go crazy, I had a list worked up for a specific reason so decided to see what it was capable of. 

Of note is the fact the Capillary Towers now have a number of chips in their clay Chitinous plates :(

Can you make out the Genestealers? Yes I went with a Maufactorum Genestealer brood. Knowing what I was taking I got Pete to put the terrain down, I didn't want any bias as to the advantage I can get with those - being able to Infiltrate in unoccupied buildings or ruins within 6" of enemy model. I realise that means they have to sit for a turn doing nothing because they can't assault and that means I'm likely to lose First Blood but that's an immediate threat you can't ignore which allows the rest of my force to go slightly less molested. Add in the fact I also had a Lictor Forest Brood, which I forgot to Infiltrate and that's another thing to occupy your thoughts down the line.

As it was, using a Skyshield may have seemed a bit redundant and for the most part my Tervigon [which spawned out on 8 first turn] and his Gaunts did little to nothing for the entire game [although I think he killed a couple of Jet Bikes with his Stinger Salvo] except camp on the nearest objectives. Maelstom of War Games are very much like the final mission from Blog Wars 7 in that you can keep getting VPs by achieving certain objectives - securing Strategic Objectives, killing people in assault or shooting etc. I was lucky in that first turn I had already secured objectives 4 and 6. I'd later get the maximum D3 VPs for taking out PeteB's Warlord, points for killing a unit in Assault, discovering each Mysterious Objective, and securing more objectives than my opponent. 

Ultimately the game ended up with me in double figures and Pete with around 5 or 6. To be honest the final score was irrelevant because I was more interested in the game play and my army list. The Genestealers were fantastic! As predicted I lost First Blood with them, but they took all the heat from the shooting first turn and 'going to ground' at night in a ruin certainly makes them more durable. There's great potential there to get a Flyrant into Synapse range the following turn to auto-negate going to ground, add in Dominion and that's even better. Even so with three broods in the ruins I still had enough troops to be a threat in this corner.

As it was PeteB charged me, with the Wraithlord and the Wraithseer. I'd added Toxin Sacs to these three broods and boy did it pay off, wounding on 4's and Rending on 6's. It took a couple of turns but both the Eldar Wraith constructs succumbed to the Stealer broods. It's hard to say how effective these can be on a different force but considering the Tervigon, Gaunts and the other two Stealer broods had no direct impact on the game - not assaulting at least, I had plenty of points that could have been doing something sould the need arise.

Also of note was the Lictor Forest Brood. they didn't deploy in the forest, I forgot and the forest was on my board side anyway. But deep striking behind the Wave Serpents... well I was worried about them deviating but Lictors dont'! So they turned up en masse, only did a glance and a pen on one of the Serpents but having five, three wound models turn up in your back field is another immediate concern. With 20 S6 Rending attacks on the charge that's also a highly effective killing squad, especially when they're in proximity to the already effective Genestealers 

I honestly didn't think this list would work, but the mobility of the units allowed me to be in parts of the battlefield I wouldn't usually be able to get to. For some reason this reminds me a lot of how I used to play with the Mycetic Spores. In truth it's not actually mobile, it can just be where I want it to be and saturate the battlefield so that it doesn't have to be fast because it's already where it needs to be.

One other thing of note, with only two psykers in this list the psychic phase was completely underwhelming. I struggled to roll more than 2 for my Warp Charge and even when I got a five still managed to fail to cast most of my powers. Granted I tried a number of Paroxysms but Dominion! And even passing that test I was repeatedly denied by the Eldar because Pete knew that Dominion would auto rally one Genestealer that spent the entire gaming running for my board edge but would have allowed it to actually assault a nearby Wave Serpent. Psychic Phase sucks, there I said it :P

One last thing I have to say GW, really has dropped the ball with the availability of the Tactical Objective Cards. I don't know what it is that's preventing them being in store, perhaps it's boxes they're in because the cards alone could be done at any printers. I nipped to the Manchester GW the day after this battle and asked if they had some in and they said no and they never would, as they're now order only. I finally relented and said I'd order them in only to find they're unavailable, AGAIN! The manager said he's sold out of stock 4 times now and hoped that when the months numbers went back to head office they'd up their orders.

I'm shocked that this hadn't been picked up already. It's a £5 item that changes the way you can play your game. After White Dwarf and paints it's nearly the cheapest thing in the store, almost Pocket Money priced [now there's a blog post I've had in draft for years] and it's like playing the game anew. They're even a really cool item and although you can dice roll for the same effect it's quicker and easier with the cards. I think you'd even find folk paying £5 for the cards without the fancy box just to have them. Add in some numbered objective markers, yes you can make your own and there's other objective markers that they make that could be used - the servo skulls with a munitorum dice on but why not make some 40mm circular ones with Ad Mech effect and gothic numerals. The Omnissiah knows they would sell!

Tuesday Nights alright for fighting 7th Edition

I've actually had two games of 7th Edition with PeteB now. We were going to continue with 6 until Blog Wars [as that's the ruleset they'll be using] but Pete has had his shifts rearranged so wouldn't be able to go. It's not really fair to keep forcing 6th on him when there are new rules to try out and get your head round, so I suggested we play the 'Purge the Alien' mission, given the changes to scoring units this will have less impact on my preparations. We'd play all the new 7th Edition rules with psychic powers, I think I can live with that when it comes to reverting to 6th.

Pete went with his Wraithguard and Lords again but I got first turn.

And having infiltrated  a wave serpent and unit of Scorpions forward Pete paid the price with my Hive Guard destroying it for First Blood. The Wraithguard also suffered a lot of wounds, Pete's dice rolling was particularly bad. My first turn was brutal and given last weeks overwhelming win I think this early surge was demoralising for the Eldar high command.

As time went by I did make some grave tactical errors, I continue to assault units far too powerful for my Tervigon to overcome. So as the game progressed Pete managed to close the gap quite considerably. One of the highlights was my last Tyranid Warrior getting an Overwatch on the venerated Wraithlord from our last game and taking it's last wound!

 

The Psychic phase was a whole lot of weird, Pete was initially very impressed before his turn when he was unable to cast any of his powers. That's one thing about 'nids, our powers are hella cheap to cast. It's a nice mechanic on the whole. It allows a bit more interaction between players during the game but it does interrupt the flow of things, slows it down a bit. We took to sitting down during this phase, it was more like a card game. When you consider I used to cast certain Psychic powers with three dice, two yellow for the Ld check and a red die for any D3 modifiers - Iron Arm and Warp Speed, now Paroxysm [why didn't that get a straight -3 to BS and WS like the Biomancy powers?] to try and save just a little bit of time. So I'm a bit concerned about the amount of time spent doing powers, but it's early days. Overall the game plays much the same but I was slightly more impressed by the charge through cover situation with -2" to your 2D6 but my Termagants have Move Through Cover so it's no effect [except for the Initiative modifier] and they get Counter Attack for free when next to their Tervigon. So I'm seeing some benefits for my nids, which is nice.

A week later and we're at it again. This time PeteB decided to overcome the shortcomings of his Wraithguard with the help of some Evil Space Pixies and their faithful beasts. This time we did the 'Emperor's Relic' mission from Blog Wars - 3 objectives with one in the middle of the board worth 10pts, and one each, your own worth 5pts to yourself and your opponents worth 15pts, an interesting dynamic. As you can see I forgot my Bastion so PeteB's daughter's toy stool proxied as my Fortification.

The beasts were the advance guard but I got first turn again so I was hoping to thin their numbers.

 

 One advantage of the 'stool of doom' was I could put my models inside the building. The Hive Guard were reasonably effective and although I didn't manage to get First Blood I took out quite a few beasts and wounded a Wraithlord.

Unfortunately the beasts are super fast and managed to roll over my Carnifex. Additionally the Bastion got hit by a Lance weapon and blew up. The Zoanthrope manning the Quad gun took two wounds and I got snake eyes for his saving throw. The Hive Guard suffered 3 unsaved wounds between the three of them, killing one and wounding another in the explosion. With Baron Sathonyx and a Farseer/Warlock on a Jetbike all sorts of wound allocation shenanigans went on to protect the beasts. It was really difficult to kill any of them. I made a gamble and sent Deathleaper in, challenged, and ended up facing a Beast Master. Challenges seem to have changed in 7th. I thought you nominated who you wanted and if they sent someone else they didn't get to take part. Now the assaultee chooses who accepts if there are more than one so the Beastmaster [the weakest of the three opponents] was torn apart by 5 wounds, two of which were rending. The Great Maw spewed its poisoned Miasma over everything and both my Biovores and Barbed Strangler deviated wildly to less effect, it seems I was borrowing Pete's luck from last week.

At this stage there was still a unit of Jetbikes and Vipers to come on and the Dire Avengers hadn't even got out of their Wave Serpents. My Mawloc had failed to turn up on turn two when Deathleaper could have got him to swallow a bunch of doggies, instead he eventually got a unit of Swooping Hawks, with the sole survivor flitting off. My Tervigons fell, one was Doomed so was taken out by the Vipers in one turn, the Mawloc would follow in much the same fashion. The Great Maw managed to survive a couple of turns against the Farseer, Deathleaper was unable to get past Sathonyx's save. Eventually the Farseer's Instant Death weapon brought them both down.

We had to call it at midnight, there was no way I could hold my own, most of my force had been spent on the Beasts and their buff units.  This was a difficult game, there's something that happens when absolutely nothing goes right. It doesn't matter how philosophical you are about it it's tough to overcome. Last week it was Pete who had to face this feeling, this week it was me. The Beasts and their buff units, offering them Fearless and having 4+ invulnerable saves, Sathonyx with a 2+ invul save until he takes a wound, it's a tough nut to crack. I even put 7 wounds on a Wave Serpent, thanks to my Flyrant, it jinked all of them!

I think we're both looking forward to smaller forces though, 1500pt armies. I'm getting bored fishing out 60 Termagants a game, can't wait to have something a little more compact.

Blog Wars 6 1850pt battle report - nids vs Dark Eldar/Eldar allies - game 3

With a high percentage of nid players, 6 out of 34, it was no surprise for me to face at least one of our mast hated foe, Dark Eldar or Eldar. Daniel Russel brought both with a scary mix of Reaver jetbikes, ]OK not much poison but you know I hate cluster caltrops] Eldar Shadow Spinner and 4 flyers - a Crimson Hunter, a Void Raven and 2 Razorwings. My son took a lot of the pictures so bare with some of the more eclectic shots he takes, not necessarily of the action but they're usually quite cool pictures though.

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

The low down:

• Crusade
• Dawn of War
• I think I lost deployment and went second.
• Warlord Trait - Tenactiy - FnP with 3" of an objective

The tournament was running late at this stage so the game time was reduced by 15 minutes, so no pressure then. Daniel set up with his Reavers next to his objective and his Shadow Weavers occupying three storeys of the nearby ruins.

I swooped the Flyrant forwards but still within cover from the ruins.

My Tervigon remained in the ruins, he's actually on the ground floor so he could not be barraged by the Shadow Weavers who'd put 2 wounds on the Mawloc because of this. I'm trying to think now should he be able to claim being on the ground floor if he can't physically fit. Obviously MCs can just barge through any ruins and leave it standing but something makes me second guess this now and I can't find the rules to say whether I can/can't. Anyway, he's got the objective and spawns 13, which head toward my other objective. 

The Flyrant swooping through the ruins.

Hive Guard and Biovores hunker down next to the Tervigon in the ruins out of Barrage from the Shadow Weavers..

On comes the Crimson Hunter with the Reavers moving forwards in the background. 

I think this is the Void Raven and everything put the hurt on the Flyrant in the ruins - so I'd played him conservatively game 1 and this is what happens when I play him aggressive and he's giving me the +1 to reserves!

He takes a hit, then falls out of the sky, he's taken either 1 or 2 wounds at this point and then he's swept by these Reavers who cheekily revel in the gore-soaked battlements of my own Bastion.

As they pass the Flyrant they slash him with their blades and caltrops killing him outright - First Blood and Slay the Warlord.

My 13 gaunts are heading for my 2nd objective [a Skyfire Nexus]

But their advance is obliterated by a Shadow Weaver barrage!

I move the Biovores towards the Bastion.

The Reavers continue to posture atop my own Fortification

One of the Devgaunt pods arrive in Daniels backfield to face the three Wracks holding his objective. 

The Wracks did not survive the Devourer fire, even going to ground.

My other Flyrant Deep Strike Swooped behind the Void Raven... 

and shredded it with Devourer fire. 

The Doom arrived in the background and was able to take some life from the Haemonculous and the Shadow Weaver gunners.

The Doom now had the objective. Apparently Duke Silacus tried to engage him in combat at some point but failed abysmally which I think eventually meant he was killed by the Doom's Spirit Leech.

I though the Flyrant was safe but didn't realise the Crimson Hunter had Vector Dancer which meant it was suddenly facing down the king of the skies.

Unsurprisingly the Flyrant did not survive the encounter.

More Reavers arrived but positioned to shoot the Doom without having their life leeched from their bodies. He suffered a few wounds, he may even have been reduced down to 1 under the intense shooting but he managed to survive another turn.

With my Hive Commander Tyrant gone my vanilla Tervigon could no longer outflank which ended up handy as it meant this turn it could move to secure my objective alongside the 13 gaunts my CC Tervigon had spawned out on this turn

Biovores head for the Bastion which is now free of Reavers.

The Reavers had been shot by everything nearby and fled. Daniel pointed out an FAQ anomaly that they can still turbo-boost in their turn and as such are never likely to move off the table. I didn't quite follow but time was running out so I went with it and I'll return the debate at the end of the report. Whatever shooting I had done at this stage was being marred by my inability to process my roll-to-hit and then roll-to-wound routines. My earlier clumsiness was being replaced by senior moments of having in my head the four 'to-hit' rolls from my Stinger Salvo where in fact the 'to wound' rolls from some blast weapon. Luckily Daniel kept me on track. You'll also notice a lack of Devgaunts controlling the objective there, not sure what got them, but I think 2 or 3 survived but bolted and where heading for my table edge.

My Mawloc popped up to little or no effect.

The 2 Razorwings arrived.

And some more Reavers.

Razorwings moved to engage my vanilla Tervigon.

Reavers screamed across the backfield.

The Doom was now on 9 wounds having sucked the life from some more Dark Eldar and presumably the Haemonculous and the Duke but he was now in the sights of the Crimson Hunter.

And with time running out I had about 3 minutes to do my turn, not enough to do everything I needed but in the far right another trio of Wracks had turned up but my last Devgaunt Brood also arrived and would have mown them down in the same fashion as their retreating siblings and captured the objective so we called that one mine. The Doom still had the objective above and linebreaker, the other objective to the right of those ruins could have been unclaimed unless a bike squad had it.. My CC Tervigon was still holding the objective next to the ruins having never moved all game. The only problem was a unit of Reavers who had contested the Skyfire Nexus next to the Bastion and trees. With time called I quickly threw four dice for the Tervigon's assault on them but it was just 1s and 2s so it wouldn't have killed the 2 or 3 remaining bikers. I still had some Termagants to Assault and there were probably shooting that could have taken them beforehand but we called it contested and I had 

Therefore I had 3 objectives for 15VPs, plus the 2 secondary VPs. Daniel may have been without any objectives, unless he had the one on the other side of the ruins from the Doom but I think he had all three secondary VPs so it could have ended up 17-3 or 17-8 I'm not sure, either way a win for me. We had quite a nice analysis afterwards about what could have been. Daniel had a lot still on the board I couldn't deal with - Razorwings and Reavers zipping about with impunity. Another turn - those 15 lost minutes and it could have been very different with most all of the objectives being contested/secured by Daniel but the last turn went by so fast I couldn't believe I was left with just 3 minutes when I was sure when I looked and saw Daniel start his turn with 17 minutes to go that 14 minutes hadn't gone by. It's funny how time plays tricks on you.

OK, so two rules issues that came up during play that I didn't have time to deal with given the shortened game:

Shooting on fall back: Daniel was of the belief that you shoot at full BS during fall back moves. This was my gaunts falling back and I was convinced they shoot as snap fires but he insisted. It is in fact only as snap shot fire. [pg 30 BRB]

Turbo boost on fall back: Like I said above I'm not sure what this rule was but Daniel mentioned it to Alex, the event organiser who seemed to be in agreement. I think the gist of it is that units on fall back can choose to run instead of shooting [though why you would do this...] but Jet Bikes get to turbo boost 24" and Eldar/Dark Eldar Jet Bikes get to turbo boost 36". Now he mentioned it hadn't been FAQ'd that somehow even if it was falling back you could then Turbo Boost in the opposite direction to remain on the board. If this is the case and anyone knows what this issue is please explain as I can't find the usual hotly contest RAW Vs RAI debate on the usual forums. 

My look at the rules suggests that [in bold] on page 30 'the only moves they can make in subsequent phases are Fall Back moves until they regroup' and subsequently a Fall Back move is described as each model in the unit moves directly towards their own table edge by the shortest possible route. So I would understand it to be that the movement in the shooting phase [should you be foolish enough to make one] is still a 'fall back' move, because that's the only type of move you can make when you're falling back, and therefore it should be in the direction of your own table edge and with a 36" turbo boost that's likely to be off the table. I don't see how that allows you to boost in the opposite direction but if anyone knows the issue please let me know.

Regardless of this and the ramifications on what would/could have been it makes no difference to me, I'm putting it down to an aberration of the warp :) . Daniel was an absolute gent and together with Phil and Adam capped a great day. 3 competitive but more importantly fun games. I had some challenges and even the horror of facing Dark Eldar, usually my nemesis was replaced with an extremely civilized and equal match up. So thanks to all I played against, see you next Blog Wars

Incidentally, this didn't come up in the game but I was reading about Barrages and how they affect levels on page 100. The assumption I always had was that if you targeted the 1st story of a ruin and a barrage deviates off the ruin and there are models on the ground but none on level 1 then the ground floor figures are unharmed - NOT SO. It says:

"If a blast of large blast weapon scatters, it can still only hit models on the level targeted, though this may be the corresponding level of a nearby ruin. If there is no corresponding level, it instead hits the highest level under the template and can only wound models on that level. If the blast marker scatter to non-ruin, or open terrain, resolve as normal."

So, resolve as normal. No dodging the barrages, when it's raining death from above, just because it missed the first floor window originally targeted!

Daniel's army list