Throne of Skulls Mar '13 - Battle 1, Tyranids Vs Space Marines/Dark Angels

First game of ToS March 2013

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC troop Tervigon Plain troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Warp Speed Enfeeble Warp Speed NA Haemorrhage Life Leech Life Leech Haemorrhage Endurance Doom of Malan'tai Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• Big Guns Never Tire (4 VPs).
• Dawn of War
• I lost deployment
• Warlord Trait - 1VP for every character slain in a challenge.

Mat Garside (Stockport GW manager) - White Scar Space Marines, with Dark Angel Allies. Mat's army is wonderful representation of the White Scars. Extremely clean and detailed with scenic bases and a fantastic Khan on jetbike. Mat was also nominated for best army, so I'll share some more pics later.

So here's my setup with one objective inside the defence line and the other just in front of the termagants on the right flank 

Mat is holding one objective in the woods and the other is in the crater. He's killed three of the genestealers but I've got that Trygon who will be hoping to seize the objective in the crater and have follow up support from the Tervigon and its spawn of 9 gaunts.

The Winged Tyrant is well out of range.

More gaunts are spawned to saturate my deployment zone with scoring units.

On comes the Stormraven and his Storm Talon escort.

The other Storm Talon arrives on the right flank.

Khan and his biker squad also arrive on the right flank.

These guys are hoping to sweep my Termagants from my objective but I've plenty of firepower in my deployment zone.

Tactical squad on the left flank suffer a casualty.

The Trygon takes 3 wounds from the Storm Raven.

The Winged Tyrant ducks and dives through the sky. Evading small arms fire from the scouts in the wood, heavy fire from one of the Storm Talons but the second Storm Talon manages to draw a bead on the monstrous creature and it takes 3 wounds, then crashes out of the sky and dies from his injuries. [that's turn 2 folks, Slay the Warlord and First Blood to Mat :( ]

I Enfeeble Mat's bikers, kill two and wound the Khan

The Trygon regains a wound thanks to It Will Not Die, try doing that Catalyst!

The Tactical Squad lose another battle brother.

The Tervigon spawns more gaunts into the woods.

Another squad of bikes outflank me...

... and prefer to lay down some withering fire on the Trygon's unprotected rear who ends up on 5 wounds.

The Khan, learning the dangers of Enfeeble heads back into Mat's deployment zone.

Too many Devourers and Fleshborers eager to make soft work of Enfeebled bikers.

The Storm Raven splats a brood of Termgants which are positioned conveniently for blast templates.

The bikers assault the Trygon.

And make short work of him thanks to Hammer of Wrath.

Meanwhile Termagants spill forth from the woods to assault Mat's rear objective and I try to consolidate my objectives. Unfortunately my Broodlord fails to make it into assault with the hovering Storm Talon, even with re-rolls! He'll pay for that next turn!

Termagants assault the Tactical squad and the Tervigon captures the objective.

The Scouts reposition to assault the Termagants and the Storm Talon moves to lay waste the Stealers.

Khan does a dirty dive for my back field, line breaker and maybe contest my objective.

The Termagants die for only two marines.

The Tervigon is endured and Warp Speeded but suffers 3 wounds from shooting and then I make this roll for something, not sure what now but I don't think it was good.

Somehow a biker dies though so it can't all be bad.

The Doom eventually arrived but the Spore Pod was shot down and he took some wounds. The biker squad was reduced to 5.

And then bikes suffered this with I think the Librarian reduced to 1 wound.

And that's the last of the pictures. Mat flew the Storm Raven over to my Defence line Objective and contested next to my Tervigon. I was feeling a bit agitated as time was running out I was convinced the Storm Raven was Zooming so couldn't assault it with the Tervigon but afterwards my friends who were watching revealed that that was not the case and so the end result was 7-6 in Mat's favour.

With the post match discussion and the revelation that the Storm Raven sat on my objective and I could have Smashed it repeatedly with the Tervigon I realised I threw the win away on this one but I think it was my nerves that did it for me. The amount of people who were stood watching at the end was very surprising. Two great armies going head to toe. If I'd got that Storm Raven I'd have had the objective for 3 and 1 VP Heavy Support point for the vehicle. My mate Liam asked why I hadn't done that I was halfway to asking him why he didn't raise that question at the time only to remember how I had felt with my game against Dan and 'unsolicited advice'. Still we live and learn and I'll remember for next time. On to game 2.

On an unrelated note you may or may not have noticed that this post didn't arrive at the usual 12-1pm time. Currently I have a number of stories at rough draft stage, none of my battle reports are done and I have no other articles scheduled. I've also been a bit under the weather since returning from Warhammer World. Despite it being great fun I think there were a lot of nerves and unrealised pressure, added to the stress of the previous few weeks regarding my Dad and an Ofsted inspection a my son's school [of which I'm a Governor] and I've been feeling terrible all week. So I hope you will be patient with my current posting schedule. I will be getting round to each battle report as and when I can fit it in. Sorry for any inconvenience but give me a week or two and hopefully I will be able to return to the blog with renewed vigour.

1600pt battle report - MAWS Challenge nids Vs Imperial Guard

Here's the third of my MAWS tournament matches. This was a four-way tournament between my local friendly neighbourhood Gaming club - The Lost Boys against The Ribble Warriors, Northern Warlords, and our hosts the Manchester Area Wargames Society [or MAWS]. There were three battles of 1600pts with a time limit of 2 hours, sadly this meant I was pressed for time, you know me, so pictures are sparse given the need to actually play. Also it's been a few weeks now so memory will be even more sketchy in places than usual. Paul [sorry I forget his surname] was up last with his Imperial Guard.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ CC Tervigon T Tal Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Warp Speed Enfeeble Iron Arm Iron Arm Haemorrhage Haemorrhage Endurance NA Haemorrhage

The low down:

• The Scouring (6 objectives ).
• Hammer of Wrath
• I lost deployment, but eventually stole the initiative
• Warlord Trait - Tenacity - Feel no Pain within 3" of Objective :)

Here's my initial setup, my Aegis was right on the half way mark as you can see Paul set his Aegis up within 12" of his board edge. So I still had 24" of empty killing field to cross so I kept the Trygon and Stealers off to Deep Strike and Outflank.

I spawned some Gaunts and pushed everything forwards but tried to stay in cover with the big stuff. It turned out the objective behind my Tervigon was Sabotaged so I would spend the rest of the game trying to keep fragile Termagants away but near in case I needed to secure the objective.

I repositioned the Tervigons so I wouldn't get anymore wounds taken off by the Leman Russes. Everything else moved up to the Aegis and I think it helped keep them alive and I can recall thinking it actually paid for it's points in saving lives this game, however I think the Hive guard had taken a casualty or two.





With a vacant spot where the Leman Russes had been the Spore Pod landed exactly where I wanted it to be.





Genestealers came in on the flank.





The Doom sucked life and was up to 10 wounds, the Spore Pod failed to do damage.





So, all the Doom had to do was make two saves or be insta-killed. That's right he makes one and fails the other. 4 saving throws in three games! He obviously did some damage but I really want to seem him last a couple of turns just to add an extra level of annoyance. The Spore Pod also got killed. 



The Warriors suffered extensive damage, I'm not sure from what but given the Warrior that's left nearest the Aegis I'm thinking it was some form of barrage weapon or perhaps a Vendetta shooting from behind?



  

The Broodlord had managed to survive a torrent of lasgun fire and managed to trash the Chimera, exploding it with the occupants left to hunker down in the wreckage.

Unfortunately this was the last of the pictures. The Trygon eventually appeared in the same spot the Doom had been and the second brood of Stealers cam on on the other flank and headed for the objective on the second floor of the building. Amazingly the Biovore had struck and killed the two guardsmen defending it and the unit routed. The Stealers got into the ground floor but later on another unit of Guardsmen managed to make it into the ruins. Eventually we ran out of time, unfortunately we only got a 1 minute warning in this game and only just completed Paul's 4th turn, with mine still to go. At that stage I was 1VP up somehow 6-5. We debated whether to 'rewind' to the end of turn 3 so we would have a fairer VP count which I believe would have been more in my favour but I settled for the small win. Who knows what would have happened with the Trygon, remaining Broodlord on the left flank and stealers gunning for the objective in the ruin on the right flank? 


Anyway, a good game overall, tough but a great learning experience. As for the actual tournament we came 3rd, which is one place better than last time and I came 13th overall [presumably out of 24] with a win, loss and draw. I'm happy with that, the draw was lucky and the other two games were also finely balanced. I'm convinced if the Doom had have been just slightly more durable he'd have been the key to tipping the balance further in those games. So does that mean hope for Iron Arm in Biomancy or forget it and just make him even more killy and take the Telepathy primaris power - Psychic Shriek - essentially his Spirit Leech special ability just with a Deny the Witch but no armour or cover saves! Of course I may not need the extra wounds Absorb Life gets me and I miss out on the AP1 of Cataclysm but it could seriously damage nits round an objective... something to think about.

1600pt battle report - MAWS Challenge nids Vs nids!

Here's the second of my MAWS tournament matches. This was a four-way tournament between my local friendly neighbourhood Gaming club - The Lost Boys against The Ribble Warriors, Northern Warlords, and our hosts the Manchester Area Wargames Society [or MAWS]. There were three battles of 1600pts with a time limit of 2 hours, sadly this meant I was pressed for time, you know me, so pictures are sparse given the need to actually play. Also it's been a week so memory may be sketchy in places. Pat Divers was my second match but my first game ever against Tyranids! To be fair though there were at least 4 'nid players competing out of 24 so the odds of playing another Tyranid army was quite high.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ CC Tervigon T Tal Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Endurance Endurance NA Life Leech Iron Arm Life Leech Haemorrhage NA Haemorrhage Endurance Doom of Malan'tai Haemorrhage

The low down:

• Purge the Alien (I started with 13VPs on the field to Pat's 11).
• Vanguard Strike
• I lost deployment, but eventually stole the initiative
• Warlord Trait - Master of Defence - Counter Attack in Deployment Zone

Pat was to go first with two Winged Hive Tyrants, two Tervigons, two broods of Termagants to make the Tervigons troops, the large flock of Gargoyles in the centre, two broods of two Hive Guard [behind the L shaped ruin top right] and a brood of three Zoanthropes right at the back! I set up with most of my Monstrous Creatures on the left out of range of his Hive Guard forcing him to take a long trek. The Trygon looks far forwards so I must have seized, again! Stealers are all to the left Infiltrating in the ruins. My Hive Guard targetted the Tervigon on the left. Pat was under the impression that Hive Guard were BS3 so he was delighted to find out they were BS4. Probably more delighted in his own turn rather than after the 3 wounds or so on the Tervigon. There were further discrepancies regarding cover saves from Impaler Cannons but again for expediancy they just didn't get cover saves from them* Also my Biovore managed to kill 6 of the Termagants in one brood!

Pat rolled for Spawning on the tervigon on the right and suffered three 1s for his pleasure [perhaps i should have targetted those with the Biovore? He then flew the Gargoyles forward, which was fine by me as I fancied 14 of those fellas against my 10 Devourers and 4 Deathspitters I managed to take out 10 of them. However, Pat had brought forwards both Hive Tyrants and I had to torrent them with the Deathspitters and Stinger Salvos in the hope they'd be grounded. I managed to get one down and he failed his save and took a wound. 





Which suddenly changed my focus on the left. The Trygon had to take out the Tyrant while he was gorunded, he'd taken wounds from the Brainleech Worms and neede to stop him while he could. He made it into assault but was on 4 wounds versus 2. Meanwhile the other Tyrant was to Brainleech the Stealers in front of him





On came the Doom and sucked the life from a load of the Termagants and after all shooting one was left! The Doom also took a wound and a model off the Hive Guard  Broods and wounded the Zoanthropes.





The Gargoyles set up to charge the Hive Guard





But before that the Doom and it's Spore Pod was splatted to finally get First Blood for Pat in turn 3. Once again it was just one saving throw I had to make with 10 wounds but it was Instant Deathed by Impaler Cannon Fire - he so needs Iron Arm! 





The Trygon couldn't take down the Winged Tyrant and instead was punished thanks to Prefered Enemy re-rolling to-hits and to-wounds. Somehow the Stealers managed to get into assault with the Tervigon, the Broodlord challenged and stripped the remaining wounds off it but as they were both Initiative 1 the Tervigon squashed the Broodlord in it's death throws. I think it also killed off the 4 gaunt Brood next to it too, unless the Biovore did that...





In an effort to get more guns on the field one of the Tervigon spawned and they raced to try and get firing on the remaining Termagant.  





Everything else moved forward I may have killed the wounded Tyrant but not before the stealers got splatted, losing me Line Breaker. The Warriors tried to get there but it was too far just yet.





The other tyrant swung round the grain silos and killed the Biovore for an easy VP but was grounded and took a couple of wounds. The tervigon pounced on it while it had the chance.





Last pic and I think the game was called shortly after with Pat winning by 2 VPs thanks to Line Breaker and First Blood. Unfortunately the Hive Tyrant I killed was not the Warlord, which would have helped

This was a really good game, it was funny though how much we both had to keep referring to our Codex for rules. You'd think between the two of us we'd have had every stat and ability covered but it was like we were newbies. I certainly had a newfound respect for the Winged Hive Tyrant, although it may be more to do with the fact there were two in play. You have to hit it with a lot of shots to ground it and if there's two it certainly reduces your chances to do that. Now if I can get an extra pair of Tyrant Wings and Fleshborer Hives I could run two as well!

Personally if I'd been Pat as soon as I saw my set up I'd have shifted the Hive Guard and Tervigon nearer in the following turns, they didn't do very much, as you can see in the last shot they're practically irrelevant to what was going on! But it was really a great game and interesting to finally face another 'nid force.



* The Impaler Cannon ignores cover saves for intervening terrain, however the FAQ states:

Q: Can a unit take cover saves from any source other than the terrain they are in, or touching, against Wounds caused by ani mpaler cannon? (p47)

A: No.

So, you can get a cover save if you are touching or within area terrain, just not if it's between you and the Hive Guard.