Blog Wars X 1850pt battle report - nids vs Dark Eldar/Eldar

Game 2 and I'm facing Kyle McSweeney and his Dark Eldar/Eldar. Now we know how good Eldar can be and I'm 50:50 with their darker kin, having suffered at the hands of Liam and my first tabling ever at Throne of Skulls but pulling it back to win objective missions at Blog Wars 6 and the Scythe and Teacup tournament. These were 6th Edition games and Codices so there's a lot of change to overcome.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant 1 Winged tyrant 2 Zoanthrope Tervigon Dominion Dominion Dominion Dominion Onslaught Catalyst Warp Blast The Horror Psychic Scream Onslaught Paroxysm Broodlord Dominion The Horror

The low down:

• Emperor's relic - 3 objectives - 5VPs for your own, 10VPs for the middle one and 15VPs if you capture your opponents objective - Vanguard Strike
• Warlord Trait - Warlord and 3 units infiltrate
• Not sure about night fighting, looks like I went first but pretty sure I lost deployment. 

We spent a significant amount of time deploying, my Warlord trait made Kyle debate long and hard over positioning and once he'd got everything just right I then had to think long and hard too because his deployment was so good it made my trait more of a hindrance. I also knew he had a DE Archon who could confer deep-strike on a unit and he was doing just that to Wraithguard with D-Weapon flamers and Prince Yriel so I'd deployed in the star fromation again to help mitigate his arrival.

I was able to swoop my flyrants forward I must have killed the unit of Dark Eldar in this ruin, despite going to ground as I'm sure I got First Strike. I even put a wound on the Wraithknight!

My Carnifex had contibuted to the Dark Eldar First strike but the Stealers and Deathleaper remained skulking in the ruins to hold onto the 10pt objective.

While my Tervigon and gaunts [spawned out on 16] secured my own 5pt objective underneath the skyshield, which Kyle had immidiately predicted would be my tactic as soon as he saw the fortification. It does make me equally happy that someone is aware of it's effectiveness and disappointed they're working out a counter attack.

Kyle was able to put a couple of wounds on the Carnifex but no First Strike.

My turn 2 and both my reserves arrive. The Mawloc appears inside the ruined factory, the Tyrannocyte deviates but the Rippers get out and hide from the remaining Dark Eldar and jetbikes. Not much happens, I do some shooting and feel quite proud of myself as this seems relatively painless and dare-I-say-it 'easy'!

Oh $hit, yeah. Why had I forgotten about the four Venoms, and two Ravagers and the deep striking Wraithguard?! Wraithgouard arrive spot on, all clustered perfectly on the roof of the building next to the Skyshield. Why had I not thought to deploy something there?

Kyle d-templates everything he can, desparate to kill the Venomthrope. It's 'key' to his plan apparently but the flamer just can't do it. Plenty of Gaunts get obliterated but it was the many splinter shots from the Venoms that eventually cut through his spore cloud to kill him outright. Now I'm reliant on the 4+ invul save to keep me alive.

I try swarming the Wraithguard but 'wall of fire' roasts the gaunts and what I have left of them can't breach the Wraithguard Toughness to force a saving throw.

The Tervigon backs up, trying to keep as far away from the D-weapons as possible. The spawned gaunts cluster round the objective underneath hoping to hold onto it.

The Venom's have other ideas, weight of fire pops the Tervigon, taking most if not all of the spawned gaunts with it. The other Termagant brood continues to claw ineffectively at Yriel's Wraithguard their numbers culled by the los sof their brood mother.

More Venom shots cut through the two Carnifex, leaving the last one with just one wound left.

Which is removed by the Wraithknight, who;d been singularly unimpressive for most of the game, either missing or failing to wound.

My Rippers were unceremoniously erased from existence also - double strength weapons insta-killing them one after another.

Wraithguard and gaunts continued to have it out but the Gaunts ultimately perished. The objective underneath the Skyshield was wide open now and he hard Venoms waiting to capitalise on it's exposure.

My Flyrants both swooped back to my Deployment Zone and I was able to riddle the Wraithguard with Brainleech Worms.

Yriel, the Archon and most of the Wraithguard died giving me Slay the Warlord [at least].

The Wraithknight jumped in to contest the centre objective, it was all falling apart now.

Venoms screamed across the battlefield heading for my objective.

Fitting with ease under the safe canopy of my own fortification!

The centre ruin became a fierce battle. I'd moved Deathleaper down but then the Ravagers got a bead on him through the window and insta-killed him. He'd been invisible stood on top of the ruin all game, as soon as he changed position he was toast. The children of Cryptus swarmed the Wraithknight putting another wound on him but getting stomped in the process. The Venom digorged it's Dark Eldar warriors who got savaged by Brainleech Worms, but not enough to lose the objective.

My Mawloc had popped in the Ruins second turn, burrowed back down and then deviated here to miss the venom.

 

Time ran out and Kyle had secured all the objectives and got Line Breaker and I'd managed lose everything except Slay the Warlord and First Strike! So a 31 to 2 loss. That sounds so painful but once again so much pain happened so quickly there really wasn;t enough time to feel miserable about it and Kyle was such a good player it wasn's depressing in any way. Really I only had myself to blame as I forgot he had most of his army off the table and went for his objective which put the Flyrants completely out of position, taking them too long to Swoop back to defend my own base. But this was his plan all along, to draw out the Flyrants and then attack my Skyshield with the Wraithguard - kudos to Kyle for planning and executing that plan to perfection. So 0 for 2, can I scratch a win in the final game

Blog Wars X 1850pt battle report - nids vs Space Wolves

First game up and it was NafNaf from Objective Secured and I can't tell you much of a thrill this was. Although Blog Wars is no longer primarily a competition for bloggers there are still a fair few that attend. But blogging in general can be a little disconnected, occassionally you will meet people who follow your blog but I often feel a little awkward socially, afterall I use share far more here than I probably would in a normal conversation but by that stage the reader will always know more about me. In this situation though we're both familiar with each other's blogs and we had plenty of time to chat and just enjoy a great game.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant 1 Winged tyrant 2 Zoanthrope Tervigon Dominion Dominion Dominion Dominion Onslaught Catalyst Warp Blast The Horror Psychic Scream Paroxysm Catalyst Broodlord Dominion The Horror

The low down:

• Purge the alien but based on the Blog Wars X rules - Unit Points for killed units, half points for half killed units which then translates to VPs - Hammer and Anvil
• Warlord Trait - +1 Seize the initiative and re-roll reserves
• Night fighting first turn, not sure on deployment I went second but Seized the Initiative by the looks of these pictures. 

So yeah, it looks like I stole the initiative, I don't even think I needed the +1 Warlord trait. That's always thrilling but equally uncomfortable as you're setting someone up to suffer quite badly [especially with two flyrants]. The Flyrants swooped forward and peppered the smallest unit of Thunderwolves with Brainleech Worms. The Storm Shields, high toughness and multi-wounds were not sufficient to stop them becoming worm-food though, securing me First Strike.

 As I knew Drop Pods were inbound I'd deployed in a star formation on the Skyshield - ensuring nothing could land on the pad and everywhere else was putting it further away from the centre of the pad or risking dangerous terrain. Hardly anything else moved except the Carnifex but I did spawn 12 gaunts to further disrupt incoming troops. Having loads of Warp Charge I had 2 points left over so decided to cast Dominion on the trailing Flyrant to keep the Carnifex in Synapse. I got doube 6, and then rolled 1 on the Perils! Luckily I passed the Leadership test, but I took a wound and fell out of the sky. My luck held a little further as Catalyst prevented any damage from the crash.

 Thunderwolves surged forward.

 Drop Pods arrived, surrounding the grounded Flyrant and eyeing up the Carnifex.

 Huge amounts of firepower went into putting the Flyrant down, NafNaf getting First Strike in revenge.

 He was then able to kill the Carnifex too, securing a much better first turn than I'd had!

My turn and the Warlord Flyant banks right and swoops across and positions to Psychic Scream both Thunderwolves. My Spore Pod also arrives with the Rippers inside.

I spawn another 8 gaunts to take the place of the 12 who now charge down the Thunderwolves. They're backed up by the Carnifex

Ultimately they don't survive all the shooting involved.

The other Thunderwolves only take a single wound from Psychic Scream.

The last Drop Pod arrives and disgorges

No real reason for this shot, just wanted a model eye's [or should that be gaunt's ass] view

I think I may have cast Warp Blast on the Zoanthrope to try and blow up the Drop Pod but just managed a glancing hit!

So that was still gaining Linebreaker.

Nafnaf's turn and the Stormwolf arrives, targeting the Warlord Flyrant. He swooped and jinked but couldn't evade the hail of fire dying on that pitiful saving throw. Slay the Warlord to Nafnaf.

Thunderwolves charged the last Carnifex. I'd been extremely lucky with overwatch, the night before I witnessed 6 snapfire shots in one of Otty's overwatch. In one of mine I managed 9 after re-rolls and had had a 7 or 8 earlier that only transformed into one saving throw!

Sadly it wasn't enough and the Thunderwolves burst the Carnifex apart.

The other marines took on the spawned gaunts.

With the Thunderwolves out in the open the Children of Cryptus set their sights on new prey.

The swarmed the Thunderwolves killing most of them

My Mawloc had deviated into a position of little use so I burrowed it. Deathleaper tried to kill off the Grey Hunters in my deployment zone but was butchered due to his patheticsaving throw. Luckily the Termagants killed off the remainder.

Last turn, the Children of Cryptus killed the Thunderwolf, Rippers were 2" away from securing Linebreaker for me and a unit of 13 spawned gaunts also got killed and time was up.

 

I was feeling pretty confident at this point because I thought I still had a lot on the battlefield but forgot how expensive the Flyrants and Carnifex were. Ultimately I'd lost 1110pts of models, plus another 100pts for Deathleaper and Nafnaf got Slay the Warlord for the Flyrant, Linebreaker and First Strike. I'd managed to do 1070pts of damage, so it looked like a draw, until I added on the Deathleaper points and then realised I'd only got First Strike, been short of Line Breaker and Failed to kill his Warlord and SC who was with the Terminators! The most annoying thing about this was the Mawloc, having put him into ongoing reserve he was counted as a casualty - 140pts of losing me the game was his only contribution! So if I hadn't have done that I;d have scored 970, plus Deathleaper = 1070 and only the secondary VPs would have lost me the game! I should have just deep struck him in Nafnaf's deployment zone.

Additionally, if I hadn't cast Dominion on my Flyrant, which I only did as an afterthought because I had two spare warp charge, he'd have not died. It was a stupid thing to do, obviously hindsight is 20:20 but he'd have probably survived the next turn as he'd have been swooping and unlikely to be offed by the terminators.

I only say all this because despite losing [when have I ever won a kill points mission?] I know it was my mistakes that did me in and that makes me think I can always improve by not making these stupid errors. More importantly though it made the game incredibly close and excting and coupled with Nafnaf being a pleasure to face across the battlefield it was such a good start to the day. In fact snatching defeat from the jaws [of the world wolf] of victory actually made it more memorable. I will never forget those mistakes, I will always have this tale to tell, could I say the same if I'd passed Dominion? Unlikely. Would I be pleased if my Mawloc was still 'alive', possibly, I may not have made the connection to him contributing to an 'epic draw', but having been classed as a casualty I can definitely say he contributed to a close loss. A great start to the day, now who's next

Blog Wars X - This time it's numeral - The Aftermath

And lo it came to pass that Blog Wars X would be the final Blog War. I can't thank Alex enough for all he's done to arrange these events and keep doing them for 5 years, this time we even got these cool objective counters [supplied by NafNaf at Objective Secured]. I managed to attend half of them and I'm really looking forward to Alex's next competition as although Blog Wars is gone a replacement is in the works but I can't tell you about it or I'll have to kill you and then Alex will have to kill me but as always if you want the info it'll be on From the Fang first.

Back to our weekend, Otty, Ben, Liam and I all got to Stockport on the Friday night. Otty and Ben had a practice game and I watched ;) I'd been suffering from some pain in my foot [possibly plantar fasciitis] all week and although Liam arrived an hour or so after I got there from work I just didn't want to start a game with a whole days standing on the morrow.

 

So I took some pictures of Otty and Ben's game

Otty's nids are just fantastic en masse.

Then we all bundled into the nearest curry house Kismet in Stockport the food was great and 20+ young women having some kind of sports team post match celebration didn't spoil the night -
Me, the 40kaddict? Here? In a Stockport Curry House? With 20+ excitable young ladies? With my tyranid collection? What were they thinking of?

Actually it was more what were we thinking of, because we're all sharing a camper van in the NWGC car park! Ooh the smells!

Ben took a picture of his first game - Ork Vs Ork

And justifiably very pleased with himself for getting best painted Special character with Ghazgkhull.

But hat was not the end of it as Otty won best painted army and Liam got best conversions with his Nurgle CSMs which included his Hellflies, Land Raider, maggot Chaos spawn and various other scratchbuilds and kitbashes! They're going to stop us coming in future I think.

I picked up these fellas too, so I can make some Shrikes like Monkeychuka, will try and recoup some of the cost by selling the rest of the Crypt Horrors on sprues.

Also on the Friday night I say this awesome Chaos Knight conversion

I love how the hatch has been welded shut so the pilot can no longer escape his hellish confines.

And a pretty cool Heldrake conversion too.

I'll try and get on with the battle reports as soon as I can, there's loads I want to blog about but I'm struggling to fit it in, I'll do my best.