Warhammer World GT3 - Game 5 Tyranids v Chaos Space Marines

Last game of GT3, game 5 and I'm facing Daniel Brennan and his Alpha Legion Chaos Space Marines. It's been over a week since this game and I was pretty fatigued and out of it throughout, there were points were Daniel was actually reminding me of things I needed to do - practically playing my turn for me at one stage. I was extremely grateful though and we still had a laugh. Two days is a long tournament for me I just don't have the stamina and it's always the same at Warhammer World nerves and excitement really take their toll!

The low down:

• Scorched Earth [Chapter Approved mission]
• Vanguard Strike - Diagonal deployment
• I chose deployment zone, but I deployed last unit [giving Dan +1 to win first turn], 
• Dan went first

I deployed with intent to steal as many objectives as I could, once again with the Warlord Flyrant on the board [when will I learn?]

Daniel had a Spartan that I wasn't looking forward to facing, along with the plethora of Noise Marines inside it!

The Tyranid Warrios manned the Skyshield. I actually dropped one of the Capillary Toweres before game 2, breaking off a chunk of DAS clay that will need to be repaired :(

Cultitsts and a Daemon Princefilled out Daniel's DZ.

And then moved to secure this objective.

Noise Marines disembarked from the Spartan, looking every which way to confuse me just as Alpha Legion are want to do.

Terminators arrived as a speed bump, backed up by two units of Obliterators in the trees and on top of the objective.

The Obliterators fired at my Tervigon.

Managing to take off 5 wounds even with a +1 cover save [you don't see that too often - a monster in cover and obscured!]

The rest of the shooting took out the Flyrant, again! First Blood and Slay the Warlord, see what I mean about lessons learned. Daniel's dice were on fire. He racked up 3VPs for objectives too.

My turn and the Trygon and Devgaunts arrived on the far edge of the board.

The other Trygon arrived with the Genestealers and together with the Broodlord they all made the charge into the Terminators.

Which could not stand against such overwhelming ferocity and I consolidated towards the objective, claiming it. The Tervigon and Termagants secured another, althogether I captured 4VPs worth of objectives this turn.

The Broodlord might have consolidated into the Cultists

And was subsequently killed, whether by the crazed individuals or the Daemon Prince I don't recall.

The remaining Cultists and Noise Marines took aim at the Genestealers.

Wiping them out. The Trygon appeared unscathed but was now revealed in it's entirety to the waiting Obliterators.

Who blasted it to smithereens!

The Daemon Prince secured another objective bringing Daniel another 4VPs this turn.

I moved the Trygon and Gaunts forward, heading for the centre objective.

The second Flyrant swooped on between the Obliterators and the Daemon Prince.

Shooting by the Flyrant brought the Prince down to just one wound, allowing me to send the Hive Guard forward to assault and secure the objective.

But it was not meant to be, the Hive Guard couldn't get just one wound on the Prince and he killed them all without blinking an eye!

The Trygon made the charge

as did the Termagants

Surrounding the objective bringing me 3VPs and drawing on primaries.

Turn 3, the Flyrant was whittled down to 5 wounds...

...and then none.

The Noise Marines blasted the Devagaunts apart -

wiping them all out and putting two wounds on the Trygon. Daniel held another 3VPs worth of objectives this turn. The Trygon then freedom to then move off the objective and head toward the Daemon Prince, killing him and securing that objective, but what about the centre objective.

Y conga...! It took me a re-roll of the first Advance move and Metabolic Overdrive, killing 8 Termagants in the process and a second advance of 10" or more and the Termagants managed to span three objectives so the Trygon could hunt the Daemon Prince.

He got into combat -

smashed him to pieces to secure the objective but Alpha Legion Warlord rules meant I didn't get Slay the Warlord as another character in Daniels army was in fact suddenly revealed as the Warlord all along! I scored 4VPs this turn to be ahead by one on primaries but Deniel had two secondaries.

Obliterators and cultists moved around toward the objectives and to get target lock on the Trygon.

Noise Marine moved to challenge for the centre objective.

Which proved no challenge whatsoever for their Sonic Blasters - wiping the entire brood of Devgaunts out 

The Trygon was blown apart by the Obliterators, Daniel would score a further 3 VPs for turn four while I only scored 2 [even on primaries again].

Turn 5 and I was very much spent by this stage, my army was in tatters and Daniel had control of most of the board.

This would lead to 4VPs while I could only score the same 2VPs again but I did get the Rippers behind the wrecked Baneblade for Linebreaker, which Daniel kindly left alone.

Final score was 20 to 16 and I'd managed to kill 450pts worth of Alpha Legion

Absolutely great game and another genuinely nice player to close out the weekend. I may have only had one win out of five but all my games were really good ones. I was utterly exhausted though and nervous energy had completely drained me. I'll definitely have to look at a more easy to run army next time. I quite fancy running my Knights actually. I'll need another one, or perhaps the new Armigers might make the detachment up. Regardless just something less fussy to both play and move around, hopefully the new Armiger kit and rumours will throw up some new options for me to explore.

Anyway I think I might have a post tournament wrap up, although I might just have covered the crux of my experience in the previous paragraph. A great weekend nontheless!

Warhammer World GT3 - Game 4 Tyranids v Aeldari [Eldar]

Game 4 of GT3 and I am a hot mess. I'm regretting the beer, yesterday's lunch of curry [fab as it was] and sheesh kebab [which was far spicier than I would have liked]. Steve Parker is facing me with a host of Wraith Guard [mainly hiding in the webway] and a Wraith Knight. In all honesty I was not with it for this game. I couldn't remember where I'd put my digital camera after game 1. I'd been using my phone since and so I was totally preoccupied with where it could be. The events team came over to give me the bad news that it hadn't been handed in while adding the good news the 'nids had been nominated again for best army. So as Steve went first and started to remove my models with ease I couldn't see them die quick enough, anyway the game...

The low down:

• Ascension [Chapter Approved mission]
• Hammer and Anvil - Table ends deployment
• I chose deployment zone, but I deployed last unit [giving Steve +1 to win first turn], 
• Steve went first

Thanks to the peculiarities of this mission all span the middle of the board, which effectively makes my Skyshield redundant in it's role of objective camper. With a lot of both our armies off board I once again chose Tenacious Survivor for my Warlord Flyrant instead of Alien Cunning to remove him from the board.

With so many Ranger scouts littering the battlefield finding space to bring stuff on was also going to be a challenge, so it seemed like a good idea to start with the Flyrant on the board. Wraithguard took and objective. Two more units of Wraithguard would secure the other objective out of shot in front of the ruin the Rangers are in.

Crimson Hunters zoomed into my Deployment Zone and wiped out the Hive Guard who were hiding in the shadow of the ruins. First Blood, swiftly followed by the second blood of the Tyranid Warriors.

The Wraith Knight shot the Warlord Flyrant to smithereens [Slay the Warlord]. With hindsight it was probably a good thing I was preoccupied with lost camera as I'd have been pretty demotivated at this point if I'd been hoping to attempt some kind of challenge in the game.

Tervigon surged forward with the Termagants, weight of numbers and objective secured, snatching the objective out from under the Wraithguard. Half their Brood had been killed though.

Trygon and Stealers appeared in the Aeldari backfield, I don't think I mad the charge, even with the Behemoth re-roll. The fates were against me it would seem.

Trygon and Devgaunts arrive on the other side, where the Broodlord had sprinted up. I secured the second objective while my second Flyrant managed to charge the Wraithguard but with an Autarch [or Farseer] holding the objective he was going to survive long enough to score 2VPs on that objective nect turn.

The Wraith Knight shot/assaulted the Trygon.

Tervigon was was killed and the Termagants suffered many casualties...

With just two left alive to secure that objective for the Aeldari.

The Wraith Knight charged the Genestealers, ultimately with just 2 left.

The last Flyrant was down to 4 wounds in combat

Wraith Guard scored the objective.

Autarch retained the centre objective for the second turn giving Steve another combined 3VPs.

Even at this stage I had some innate tactical awarness. I fell back with the Flyrant, movign to the other side of the objective to take out the Autarch with the Broodlord ensuring he died, unfortunately that must not have been in my turn as I'm only down as 1VP, which would have been the objective in the Ruins. Still, Slay the Warlord and as the Broodlord made the killing blow I used my last CP to use Feeder Tendrills and managed to regain 3CPs [although I later discovered some believe Broodlords cannot use Feeder Tendrils because it states Genestealer can do it, he has the Keyword GENESTEALER though so I'm unsure on the difference?]

Steve subsequently surrounded the Trygon and Devgaunts and brought the Wraith Knight to bear on the Flyrant and Broodlord. The Flyrant was shot.

The Gaunts were engaged.

The Wraith Knight assaulted the Broodlord and I had to make five 5+ invuls to evade his assault.

But that one 4 took the Broodlord out. This left the Farseers holding the objective with the Wraith Guard holding the other one.

Wraith Knight moved to the ruins. My Trygon extracted itself from the ruin and then moved to charge the Wraith Guard. I may well have discovered my lost camera at this point which caused blessed relief but the game was lost in all but name.

I mustn't have done much damage. I socred another VP for this objective.

The Guard fell back and killed yet more of the Devgaunts.

Wraith Knight mopped up the Devgaunts the everything shot at the Trygon who must have lashed out in death throes.

As only 1 Wraith Guard remains. With some Rippers still on the board, trying to sneak Linebreaker Steve had plenty of time to score another 8VPs over turns four and five while he wiped out the Skyshield to ultimately table me.

Steve was an absolute top bloke throughout. Out of all my games this army completely outclassed me. Sure the Orks had done as good job but that was numbers and poor tactics on my parts and good tactics on there's. This was an army that was just in a different league. In fact my kill points were just the Autarch on 77pts, which I felt truly embarrased byt after yesterdays ribbing on the 82, but thankfully Liam had a worse game in the 40s so he really sucks compared to me!

I really appreciated Steve's patience and thanfully we finished with 20-30 minutes sparer for me to start shifting my stuff into the cabinet and then game five.