Apocalypse WOW! 12,500pts of Armageddon - Turns 4, 5 and 6

Our turn 4 and Nancy was suitably miffed at the loss of the Swarmlord and trained her guns on the Warhound which had just suffered a glancing hit from one of my Hive Guard!

This is 're-creation' of the dice roll Otty quickly whipped off the table in excitement. It surely looks like the Warhound was wounded badly but is still in later pics so I guess she didn't die, just yet! 

The Hormagaunts are routing all the way back now with little hope of me regrouping. Otty's mishapped Devgaunts are nearly out of the deployment zone - sodding Synapse and run moves. My Tervigon is starting the dash across the frozen wastes...

Only to get splatted, probably by the Shadowsword given how smug it looks immediately opposite.

The Vulture culls even more of the fleeing Hormagaunts.

And with targets running out everywhere why not drop an Apocalypse blasts on those devgaunts who've done nothing all game? Yep, thats around 8 dead.

I think this is now our Turn 5 as Nancy takes another crack at the Warhound.

And she finally bites the dust getting us a VP!

The remaining Hormagaunts head for the hills and I move what's left of the Devgaunts forward.

Meanwhile my Tervigon is still holding the Chapel, with her 5 spawnedTermagants waiting in cover to steal the objective should she fall.

The Warriors finally make it to the objective but there's a busload of Ogryns the other side of that wall and I just don't think the Prime and a Warrior with only one wound is going to survive their ripper guns let alone an assault.

Nancy slams into the Shadowsword and I think she ultimately smashes it to pieces like tin foil!

The vanilla Tervigon gets prioritzed for termination by whatever Imperial weaponry is available.

And ultimately her fate is sealed...

and the Chapel is sullied no more by the stink of Xenos filth

The Ogryns dutifully wipe out the Warriors and Prime, although I think the Prime might have offed Commissar Yarrick in a challenge as he doesn't seem to be with his crew.

The Stormlord swivels to bring down Nancy

But somehow she smashes that to pieces gaining us our 3rd VP

With only Otty's Devgaunts for me to move there was one last hope for redemption when an over eager Vendetta pilot closed in for the kill on the already fleeing Hormagaunts, thus allowing the Devgaunts to reposition for a rear-armour shot. Here's my first 11/21 snap fire shots. Sadly I only got one more 6 to hit and needed three 6s to glance it out of the sky. Sadly the bitter irony did not go my way and I could only manage 1 glance and the flyer escaped.

The Termagants managed to pass their Instinctive behaviour and capture the Chapel once more.

Only to have it snatched away by the contesting Vulture, he probably shot them all too, to capture it back for the Imperium

And that was the end of the game, with I think the final score being something like 19 to 3. So it was an absolute whitewash, although in that last turn Nancy was an absolute beast ripping through the three Super Heavies like they were never going to be a problem. This was a fun game though, it was more like a big 40k game for me as I didn't have any Apocalypse beasts under my control but pretty much everything I wanted to do with my deep strikes delivered. I think I should have committed the CC Tervigon sooner, it did nothing all game and neither did the Swarmlord. But we were terrified he was going to be killed first turn.

The BIG problem with Apocalypse is the scale of it, with so much to move and the amount of time it's such a shame that you have an hour+ of killing where you just totally hammer your opponents only to then be on the receiving end yourself for an hour+ too. It can be too much of a up, down, up, down scenario. Also you really need the Apocalypse creatures/tanks to stand a chance. I'm not sure what my 4000pts could have done to those Super Heavies, maybe they should have been a priority instead of the Manticores but I think Smash attacks would have been needed by MCs and I'm not sure any got chance to do that with easier targets in the way anyway. Then again Otty was stuffed by a drop pod capturing an objective and he didn't have anything nearby strong enough to even glance the thing let alone penetrate it.

And once you start getting the extra VPs for controlling objectives in turn 4 there was just no coming back for us. Luckily 3 of the VPs spent by Ben and Liam were pretty ineffective otherwise we'd be looking at an even worse score line.

We'll definitely do this again, although we may have to tinker again with the rules to see how the playing field can be levelled. Clearly letting us go first helped a bit but then again Nancy was brutal when she finally got her a$$ in gear. A great game all round.

Lastly here's a shot of Liam's scratchbuilt Contemptor Dreadnought, not bad for a Bucks Fizz plastic cork, plastic lids, caps and other bitz!

His awesome Forgeworld Dread.

And the four of us, Otty, me, Liam and Ben...

...yes I was dead by the end of the day!

Apocalypse WOW! 12,500pts of Armageddon - Turn 3

With Turn 2 complete we get some Victory Points and 2 new Strategic Assets. Liam and Ben had 2Vps I think, 1 for an objective and 1 for killing Nancy. We only managed 1VP for securing the chapel on the hill, everything else was contested. We then spent that VP in reanimating Nancy and then used a Strategic Asset to bring her on on Liam and Ben's table edge, as you can see she had an immediate effect blowing up one of the Super Heavies KABOOM! Not sure what the other Asset was.

With so much going on we finally moved the Swarmlord and my CC Tervigon out of cover. With so much going on we figured they'd be overlooked in the action [yeah right!]. My Hormagaunts positioned to charge the Vendetta and all the stealers moved to get into charge range of something at least.

The remaining MCs headed up the middle hoping to get to grips with the Super Heavies, my Hive Guard do little.

With all but four of the Hormagaunts getting in to assault the Vendetta was doomed and glanced to pieces.

Stealers multi-assaulted the last two Terminators so we could 'sling-shot' off with consolidation moves.

Another Legion of the Damned was killed by Devgaunts and Tyranid Warrior fire and the remaining Stealers headed for Pask in his Leman Russ.

NOT Lysander continued to smash through his attackers, being the only one left of his squad but surrounded by the chittering green horde.

Dakka-fexs put the hurt on anything within range and the Heirodule took a pummeling from Thunder Hammers

The Devastators, who had felt so secure in their vantage point on the far left flank were suddenly horrified as a Lictor suddenly appeared within their midst. All this time it had been watching their every move and punced ready to attack [and was probably shot to ribbons in the next turn, ha, ha!]

Ben and Liam's turn and they've Strategic Assets galore. In comes a D-weapon on the Swarmlord Death Star. If this hits, bye-bye warlord. Even the Iron Arm, Endurance and Cover Saves will be for nought.

Luckily, the blast deviated meaning the VP spent resulted in just one wound on the Tyrant Guard. Ha, ha! That was funny as opposed to utterly depressing!

The Terminator Captain and Chaplain finally put down the Genestealer on the right Titan foot, securing that objective.

Another VP was spent and a Baneblade rumbled onto the my flank, suddenly all my remaining nids were painfully exposed.

Trapped between the Bane Blade and the Stormlord, things were looking bleak. Meanwhile the Vulture peeled off to target the Hormagaunts.

  

Lightning and Vendetta zoomed over to the Chapel to secure the objective.

While the remaining Lightning joined the Vulture in ruling the skies over my flank.

  

My Stealers were destroyed, probably by the Ogryns and Stormlord. The last Legion of the Damned member managed to kill two of the remaining Devgaunts leaving 1 to contest.

The Vulture was clearly less than successful in taking out the Hormagaunts. Only removing about 5 or 6.

The Baneblade was intent on destroying the Broodlord but he was just as lucky as his twin in Look Out Sir and cover saves rolls. He ended up with 1 wound remaining.

  

And then finally succumbed, but it took almost everything Ben had to take him out. Well, everything except and Apocalypse Template that took care of the remaining Ymgarls.

 

At this point I goaded Ben into assaulting the last Devgaunt with his Damned Astartes, he jokingly said he'd probably die in overwatch, to which I managed to hit him once and then wound he promptly failed his saving throw, which I thought was hilarious. I suddenly remembered the gaunt had to do it's morale check, which it failed but assuming Ben had still assaulted the result would have been the same.

 

The Warhound and Shadowsword were quite happy to pound away on my rapidly diminishing forces.

The Swarmlord's Deathstar cohorts were splattered into oblivion, which ultimately led to his demise too. Another VP to the 'good' guys for killing our Warlord.

More of my Warriors were incinerated.

Anyway, turn 4 next and we see if there are anymore VPs to come our way?