Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 16/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! After last weeks 4 hour gaming session on just the first turns we were all hoping to finish our return to 40k. We had agreed that we would come into this with open minds. We want to like 40k, I am addicted to it afterall. But to paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. 

Last week the Orks hadn't been particularly effective. 

The Tyranids however were more durable, seemed to kill whatever was put in front of them and their wealth of rules seemed disproportionate to the Ork buffs. 

As Ben and Liam started turn 2 this continued. 

Liam was lucky with his amount of shots, then many hits, but he couldn't seem to translate that into wounds. 

Even when they did, our high saves, or invulnerable saves left most of the bugs undamaged.

 As our turn started Ben and Liam had almost called it quits. Shadows in the Warp left most of the Orks battle shocked, adding to their woes.

But, when it came to our shooting and combat the dice failed us and we couldn't seem to thin the Ork Horde. The Norn Emissary, who was nigh unkillable failed to remove any of those that had surrounded him.

And with their ability to fall back, shoot and assault he was riddled with the weight of dakka.

Suddenly the game swung the other way but the damage had been done.

The game is depressing. Every unit came as a surprise and the wealth of buffs proved too much to ignore and just play the game. I couldn't enjoy our initial success while Ben and Liam felt overwhelmed. Then when the fates reversed I felt annoyed we'd gone through that complaining because all it took was some bad dice to put them in the lead. Ben admitted he too then felt bad because it was all going their way. Maybe with more games, familiarity with both the ruleset and the units may prevent the unpleasant revelations of "it does what?!" Put it this way, we only got to the bottom of turn 3 in another 4.5-5 hours. I wasn't interested in the scores but Liam checked and we were losing [just] 26 to 25. It was mentioned finishing it off next week but I have no desire because it wasn't a fun experience. 

In fairness I felt despite all the buffs there must be balance in the game for us to have been so close. We both had shocking runs of dice rolling that did very little and allowed the other players to come back into the game. So really it isn't that bad. It just brings out the worst in us, because the depth of rules and interactions gives the impression it's unbalanced. I don't want to go through a debate every time about a unit's rules and if it's OP every time we play. I didn't write its rules. As we have plenty of other game options that don't feel so overwhelming, and are more fun, so why play one that does? We may try it again sometime. It's just a shame we couldn't make it work for us.

Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 09/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! You read that right, actual 40k that I am supposedly an addict for. We had a full shed of Otty, Ben and Liam. Ben brought his Speeed Freeeaks, which was supposed to be 2,000 points, but due to balance updates was now around 1,780. I managed to combine Otty and my own Tyranids and bring it down to 1,735 [the 2,000 point list looked awesome]. Even so when Liam and Ben set up the plethora of vehicles with so many still in reserve it felt like we were severely outgunned. Anyway, we lost first turn and managed to weather the barrage of fire, mistakes were made and progress was painfully slow. I think we just managed one turn each! Our counter-attack was much more effective and quite a few vehicles were trashed. But aside from the mistakes and bad luck I actually think when we finish it off it will be close and challenging for both sides. We have the advantage but if the game turns then it could prove interesting for us all, which is the most important thing. We want to like the game but if it's no fun then what's the point when we have more pleasant game to play instead?

Warhammer Underworlds - Ironsoul's Condemnors pt.3 - TO DONE! 🔴⚪

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PaintingWarhammer Underworlds Ironsoul's Condemnors... Leftfield once again and completely off-list but if you recall when I last painted this warband I only did one of them on Red Planet BASE!🔴

I really wanted to complete the trio and I'd also secured some 3D printed chapter badges and crossed sword decals which I wanted to compare to my freehand attempts.

Additionally, it's a nice exercise in seeing how easy it is to replicate the scheme, having had a break between the first four and the final two.

Although the red is something I'm fairly familiar with and the silver is pretty basic.

So it's not surprising that there is very little difference.

One day I will get round to painting my Primaris, I think they'll look pretty cool altogether.

I'm still struggling with my photography, so I decided to try old Camera360 again and my favourite filter - Velvia is not what it was.

Far from the enhanced, saturated reds and oranges they're become completely blown out.

And another Great Big Wooden Stamp of Approval.

And on the white background, which actually makes them look much better I think.

So, here we go with the 3D Heresy icon, which ended up much smaller than I expected and hard to define the crossed swords. And, the crossed sword decal, which did exactly what I expected it to do. No doubt that'll be my weapon of choice. There's faffing with gloss paint, but actually it's probably quicker than the freehanding and much more consistent.

And in comparison to the blue bases ones. It's still clear that's the better option, but not one I'll be exploring for the Primaris. 

There we go.

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Chaos Knights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k We're persevering, I think this is my 4th game of 10th edition now, which is double what I played of 9th. Anyway, I was taking my Knights [Lancer and 3 Warglaive] against Liam's Chaos Knights [Rampager, Desecrator and War Dog Carnivore]. We're still confused with setting up. We got Dawn of War, but the mission was the Ritual, where you deploy objectives in No Man's Land [that's all I read]. I won deployment and took the near side, trying to keep the terrain between me and Liam's big guys so I can put my objectives out of his reach. My secondary was 2VPs per unit killed [yeah right], while Liam had to defend his home objective for 3VPs per turn! I was so screwed

He won first turn and sent the Rampager up the board and deployed an objective. It was at this point I read the 'fine print' of the mission. You can only deploy an objective within 9" of an existing objective. So, as I'd moved the bulk of my army to the other side of the board, away from the only objective in my deployment zone I was utterly and completely screwed. One of the Warglaives weathered the opening salvo fromt he Desecrator with some fantastic saves. My turn I used the Lancers Bondsman ability on my Warglaive to Advance and Charge the Carnivore. I managed to get 6 wounds on it.

Then I discovered [as did Liam] how utterly brutal the Chaos equivalent is in combat as it ripped the Warglaive to pieces with absolute ease. The only bright side being it went overkill and the Warglaive blew up, but only did 1 more wound on the Carnivore. With the scent of blood in its nose it loped toward my second Warglaive.

And just mauled it to pieces. I was getting spanked at this stage. The complete failure in deployment had already left me 13pts adrift with no chance to perform and Ritual objective deployments and I'd lost 2 knights already.

Some good news though, the remaining Warglaive smashed through a walkway and got its sights on the Carnivore - managing to strip its remaining wounds, no explosion.

My Lancer bounded round the refinery, shot its Lance at the Desecrator with no damage. It had already taken 7 wounds thanks to the Desecrator. It then took a load more from this turn of shooting, I think there were 5 or 6 wounds left.

The Rampager Tank Shocked the Lancer and it stripped the remaining wounds. I used the fight on death strategy to get some attacks back. I think I got 12 wounds back on it, or strip most of its wounds off it.

We were close to calling it at a night at this stage. Despite the early success on the dice the deployment had destroyed any chance I had. My dice rolling had been shocking since. BUt I had my last Warglaive left and it's Melta Lance was still sufficient to bring the Rampager down

So we went another turn and amazingly the Warglaive did enough with Trophy Hunter I regained my only CP and if I could survive another turn I'd be getting an additional 3 for killing Liam's Warlord.

The Desecrator came in and I was once again able to weather the storm thanks to Rotating Ion Shields. I was also Honoured now, giving my a 5+ FNP. Liam just made it into combat.

I think this was his total whiff, with only 1 attack hitting home. In my turn I was on 4 CPs. We struggled a bit with the command phase as I had to take a Battle Shock test - failure would mean no stratagems. But Shoulder The Burden is used in the Command Phase and gives me +1 to Move, Toughness, Save, Leadership, OC and adds 1 to the Hit roll. We figured it worked, but if he failed the Battle Shock we'd take it off. Luckily he passed. But he was down to 2CP

I threw Squires Duty on for improved +1 Strength, AP and Damage, as well as Trophy Claim for +1 to the Wound Roll. I shot in combat with the Melta Lance - still hitting on 3's [due to modifiers] and rerolling a 1. Wounding on 2's [reroll a 1] and doing D6+5 damage. The Melta Gun, hit on 3's wound on 4's D6+3 damage. But not enough, the Desecrator survived and smooshed him real good for his temerity.

I'll say it again - deployment was flawed from the beginning, because I just hadn't read the mission properly. But aside from that this was the most fun game of 10th we've had, even if I did get slaughtered. Lesson's learned - the Carnivore is brutal, kill it from distance. Lancers need to charge, do not let it get charged. Read the mission rules properly! But that comes down to unfamiliarity. The more we play the more the missions will make sense. Having the cards really helped for us both, but there is still a lot of back and forth to the rules to understand, stratagems, terrain rules, battleshock, the mission and also the pre-game roll offs. All that previous knowledge is lost and we're not confident enough. Checking the rules repeatedly disrupts the flow and energy of the game, which is a shame. 

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Eldar v Tyranids

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k again, this is a while ago, so I'm not sure how much I remember but it was a chance for a few of us to get together. This was Scott's Aeldari versus Otty's Tyranids.

Scott and Liam had quite the array, with a Wraithknight, Avatar, Wave Serpent and some Wraithguard. 

Otty had some Carnifex, Tyrannofex, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Termagants and Genestealers/Broodlord

I think we got first turn and, as always, got as far up the board as possible. 

I'm pretty sure the Tfex got a really good shot on the Wave Serpent, but thanks to a stratagem was able to shrug off half its damage, keeping it alive. With hindsight I think this was a pivotal moment. If that Wave Serpent had have gone down it might have changed everything. We did however kill the Rangers in the Tyranid Capillary Towers... 

Which gave the Avatar the perfect launching point. Concentrated fire on the Tfex put it down, with the Wraithknight, Avatar and Wave Serpent taking out their biggest threat.

Scott and Liam had been able to make great progress, both in board control and damage to the Tyranids. We were already floundering. We were struggling to put any damage on those big 3.

And the Avatar stepped down from the Towers to wipe out the Zoanthropes.

I think we lost so much more after this and although I thought the game was a bit more 'fun' than previous attempts I know Otty was unimpressed. Our rolling was unspectacular, we were out-gunned and the constant rule checking didn't help the flow of the game. Not having the stats for the nids on cards I was constantly switching between the 2 Indexes giving the rules for both factions. It's not a great way to play. The actual game rules - if we played more and got the core rules down that might help but definitely having the faction rules to hand will be of benefit. I've a better report coming though with my Knights, so look out for that.