Tuesday night's all right for fighting [6th edition cherry popped!]

I hadn't planned to go to the local friendly neighbourhood gaming club on Tuesday night but given the excitement of new rules I thought 'what the heck?' My good buddy PeteB has seen sense and despite saying he wouldn't get into 6th and sold his Eldar has gone right back in and ploughed his ebay earnings into Grey Knights, but still has a lot of Blood Angels/Marines that he uses with his son. He was going to make it late on in the evening so I hung around for a 500pt bash, again no pics I'm afraid.

I had Tervigon, 2 Hive Guard, 10 devgaunts and a Broodlord and just 4 stealers with adrenals.
Pete had a Razorback, a squad of scouts, a tactical squad with Plasma Cannon and a stormbudgie ;)

We did the 'scouring' mission on a 4'x4' table and tried our best not to trip over too many rules. I didn't swap out any psychic powers and whatever warlord skill I got I can't remember as it wasn't worth remembering.

First blood, or shodachi - a Japanese word for the first scoring point in a kendo match which is important psychologically and in 40K is important now for victory reasons. That went to PeteB, but he got first turn and I think that'll be pretty much the norm for most matches unless night fight kicks in.

We spent a good few minutes discussing first blood as the 5+ cover save was useless and removing figures from the front was just a bit weird as you try and allocate from the 'wound pool' but that doesn't really matter as you have to keep making saves for the guy in front until he dies before the bullets/beams/flames get to the second in line. I can't see how to speed that up really, there's a 'box out' in the rules called 'fast dice' but reading it seems complicated and I'm not so sure it'll end up all that fast. Anyway, 2 stealer went down and 3 Devgaunts.

In return I spawned 12 and pooped out, the Hive Guard could only draw a bead on the scouts and I think impaled 1 or two. Meanwhile all the gaunts hid out of sight in a building. It's handy being able to pre-measure that's for sure.

The Stormbudgie came on and did some wounds on the Tervigon. In reply my Hive Guard shot at the budgie but missed, at this stage we were less about winning and more about seeing what happens so PeteB suggested they have another chance but firing at the Razorback to see what happened - 2 pens, one of which blew it up - easy. The Stealers charged the slightly stunned combat squad inside and mauled 4 of them, Adrenals no longer give +1 Initiative :(

Next  turn and PeteB decided to Hover the Budgie so he could get a better BS, he put another two wounds on the Tervigon but it was ready to strike back. Meanwhile all the gaunts headed out of the building to try and capture two objectives by conga lining. The Hive Guard targeted the budgie [the Tervigon holding ready to mop it up if they whiffed] four hits, two pen and one glance so it was wrecked. We were taken aback by how easy it was. We weren't the only ones to think it had 3 hull points but 2 is just fatal. I'm pretty sure he won't make the mistake of hovering again. Part of me thinks the inability to fire blast templates at flyers is a bit daft, I pretty much recall my World War 2 films having anti-aircraft flak out the wazoo because I understand it was a better chance to hit them with an exploding blast munition than individual projectiles.

Anyway, the Tervigon cluster spined the scouts down to one man, the stealers finished off the lone marine and high tailed it behind a building out of sight of the five remaining tactical marines with the plasma cannon.

Last turn and I charged the stealers [down to the BL and one, passing their morale test just] from behind the building away from their objective to assault the tac squad just so we could see how overwatch worked, I think the Broodlord assaulted by himself, the squad failed to hit and he took out two marines in response. We didn't do any challenges as I thought it was something new too far at this stage.

So the end result was irrelevant really, the objectives we had we knew what the value was in advance and we did some pretty odd out of game stuff just to see what would happen. There are obviously some bits I like. Wound allocation will be the difficult thing and it's even worse when in assaults. All the psychic and warlord stuff just adds a whole new level of remembering things to add to your troops. Given how many times I used to forget to use Catalyst that's one thing I'm not overly looking forward to. I fear I'll fall back on the Codex powers which may mean I miss out on some cool stuff. I think I'm going to need some other nid player as a mentor!

Overall it wasn't too bad, 500 pts was neat and we pulled the game off in about 90 minutes. However my other abiding disappointment was the objectives. Allocating values to them and suggesting they be turned face down means the purpose of getting my Hive Node markers and the practice and awards given out for objective markers is going to take a hit which I feel is a shame. Given how many times I suggested using my markers instead of my opponents coins, buttons or navel fluff at the Warhammer World tournament I'm disappointed at the shift but interested in finding an alternative solution.

Terrain is everything - Tyranid defence line

Firstly, apologies for the lack of 6th coverage. I've got a shedload on my plate at the moment and fitting in the blog when it can tick away happily without my intervention for a fortnight makes it bottom of the pile, that's not to say I don't love you all, I do, you're just high maintenance ;) The sad fact is though that by the time I get to address some of the more pertinent issues with 6th many of them will have been addressed or discussed by those bloggers and forumites worthier than I and I may have missed the boat. Still I'll struggle on.

Back to the post, you've all seen Fortifications are 'in' and everyone and his dog can make space for 50pts of Aegis Defence Line so they can bring their cover with them. GW's point of view is that now folk will be buying this set in bucketloads and not just for the quad guns to make Mortis dreadnoughts! My initial reaction for Tyranids was excitement because I'm not going to buy the Aegis set because my nids obviously don't use Imperial Architecture and if you've seen the nid FAQ:

Q: Are Tyranid units inside buildings (ie the Bastion) subject to instinctive behaviour tests? Further, are they able to manual fire emplaced weapons? (p33)
A: No to both questions

But apparently the FAQ implies that only Imperial folk can use the weapons emplaced within - BOO! I was looking forward to using spare deathspitters and Tyrannofex weapons to represent the weapons attached within. But if the nids can't use them that sucks. My knee jerk reaction was eventually not 100% justified as the weapons can be auto fired, so a semi-sentient nid presence will still get 'quad' guns
Ultimately though my hope was that the 'in game' purchasing of Aegis Defence Lines, Bastions and fortifications etc. would herald a new renaissance in folk creating their own xenos equivalents to get the benefits but by doing it old school hobby style on the cheap and with some exciting creativity. Obviously a Tyranid Bastion equivalent in my case might be a nice challenge.

Of course there are already 'alien' 3rd party equivalents out there, the most well known is Darkartstores First Contact Terrain. It's not necessarily the cheapest option but you do seem to get quite a lot for your buck - a 5" section for £4.50 seams equivalent to any sort of Forgeworld prices/purchases.

Alternatively there's Do It Yourself and you know that's what I'm all about, especially if it's cheap-cheap and doubly so if it looks cool. So forgive me if I just bow to someone who's already been there, done that and created the solution to our problem: Mr_Pink and his alien barricades

From this:

To this:

And lets be honest we can all manage that I think! And whilst we're at it I may as well share some more of Mr_pink's awesome work:

• Mycetic Spores
• The Infestation of Casavant Prime terrain table
• The making of the Infestation of Casavant Prime terrain table posts on Warpshadow 
• Mr_Pink's terrain posts on Warpshadow

That should be enough for now, but it's got me thinking about Bastion and Skyshield equivalents and it's only a little step further on to look at Tau, Eldar, Necron and the oh, so amusing Ork versions!

Warhammer World - Imperial Fists for Turiya64

OK, here's one for my blog buddy and STC 'guinea pig' Turiya64 he's a big fan of the Imperial Fists so I thought I'd treat him to the Warhammer World studio display.

I really like this Venerable Dreadnought, I thought it was Forgeworld but I see now it's the original metal one that's out of production [OOP as the say]

Some cool looking scouts.

Unfortunately the High Marshall of the Black Templars came out a bit blurred, I know he's not Imperial Fist but 2nd founding so he kinda counts. Anyway as he's the number one figure you see when you browser deletes your country preferences on the GW website I thought I'd capture him for posterity. I appreciate I didn't quite manage that but nevermind it's the thought that counts!

My Son's Eldar Guardians

By the time you're reading this we'll have been and gone to Warhammer World and my Son will have been fighting with these or with a secondary Tyranid force, I'm betting the latter. He allowed me to prep all the bases, I've obviously left the Mechrite Red edges as I wanted to ensure they wouldn't be handled if he still had bits he wanted to paint.

I think he's done a decent job, they're much better than my first attempts. My only reservation is he doesn't seem to want to 'take them further'. Y'know, just had a highlight here and a highlight there, just to make them pop a little more and in the process neaten them up. As they're simple Guardians maybe he's right to stop here, he has gone a little further with his 'Diving Eagles' but when he says he's more interested in the painting side of thing and then dismisses an opportunity to improve it gives me the impression he's not really too fussed afterall...

But, they look great as a whole and he has put a fair bit of effort into them so I'm rightfully proud of his efforts.

Here's the support weapon gunner, we need another support weapon but they're expensive on ebay or difficult to get hold of. I'm looking at trying to mount a spare Wraithlord Weapon on a plastic spoon but even a dry fit looks a bit cheap and nasty. I'm surprised those 3rd party figure makers haven't tried to fill this void...

Still to do the face and hair of this helmetless Guardian.

'nids part 43 - Run the Gaunt-let

Termagants, five of them all from my ebay goodies bag, what do these cost now at GW £6 [going up to £6.60 I think] and the bits bag was just over £4 and it also got me the two Hive Guard and four Ymgarl Stealers. One day I'll work out the true value of that perfect little treasure.

So they're done and dusted. Another five despite my Tervigon usually spawning out on turn 1, however what would happen if I was running two Tervigons...

 

And the 10 Devgaunts complete with their Toxin Sacs, as I say more for unit identification than actual upgrades and if anyone ever raises that as a beef I'd rather not play.

These will come in useful if I ever do a double drop pod Devgaunt-wing [ha, ha].

My son used these at Warhammer World. I'm still not sure about how his battles went down. I know he lost all three matches but he hasn't been particularly infomrative about who did what and how.

Sorry about all the pics but I do love the colours on these and once they're varnished [indeed Maelstrom finally delivered although I did receive another confirmation email prior to felivery of despatch which makes me wonder if the first despatch notice was in fact erroneous] I may even use these in preference of the existing 10 Devgaunts.

And a close-up, aren't they 'purty'?

'nids part 42 - Tyranid Warrior to Hive Guard conversion p6.

BOOM! Here come the Hive Guard. I'm really chuffed how these turned out. They ended up costing so little from the bits that came in my ebay mixed bag. I've bought another 5 Warriors to make at least 2 more and needed to buy a further £5 worth of 2 pairs of rending claws and 2 Stranglethorn cannons but I still think I was quids in with my purchases.

They make a nice pair, and are significantly different in pose to each other, something the GW model can't claim.

Here, you can begin to see the 'arm transplant' and the extra armour plates from version 2.0 that were added to version 1.0.

A couple of close-up shots to see the arm transplant.

The extra armour plates added to the chest front of Hive Guard v1.0

The back view of the Tyranid Warrior to Hive Guard conversions.

And the top view of the Tyranid Warrior to Hive Guard conversions. So even if you didn't follow the How To guides earlier on, or they weren't clear enough hopefully you've enough reference pics to convert your own. The fact is even if you've been hiding under a rock Hive Guard are THE elite choice for 'nids. More durable and reliable than Zoanthropes, cheaper than the Tyrannofex and more penetrative than a Heavy Venom Cannon. If you're going 'nids you need them. I think I've played them twice now, old lists still need to be reworked to fit them, but they've done awesomely every time, that's a 40k Addict recommendation

Of course the actual GW model is quite nice and I have made one flaw in that I wanted to differentiate the size of the Hive Guard from the donor Warrior figure. Having them in forward leaning pose automatically lends itself to making them smaller. However, Hive Guard as T6 so they should have been bigger...

Still as much as I like the actual model at £16 a pop that was never going to happen and the very fact I made the model and it resembles the original so well I think I'm happier to have this than any expensive 'kosher' representation. Anyway here's a proper side view to see the difference, of course if I'd put the Hive Guard in front you'd have also seen the Warriors long tail too. Still I think there's no mistaking these are very different models.

Warhammer World - Game 1 Night Lords [Blood Angels]

Here's the first game of the 'Let There be War' Tournament at Warhammer World. This was four of the local GW's in two teams - the 'Seasiders' (Southport and Blackpool stores) Vs the 'Inlanders' (Liverpool and Preston stores). Both my Son and I were obviously on the Southport side of the 'Seasiders' both with a 1000pts of 'Nids. The three games would utilise all three mission objectives and deployments. 

First match for me was a guy called Mark with his Night Lords [counts as Blood Angels]. Spearhead deployment with five objectives - one just on the upper side of the petrified forest were the Stealers infiltrated, another behind them. One in the centre of the board on the hill. He had a squad in the Razorback, a normal Dreadnought, a Librarian Dreadnought and the unit alongside the Razorback with an Assault Squad in reserve.

My deployment had the spore mine objective secured below the forest and the Hormagaunts heading for the building which contained and objective on the second floor.

The Hormagaunts got a decent run and captured the building objective.

I'm not sure who got first turn but I know the Tervigon spawned 8 and got doubles so not more Termagant troops for me. The Tyranid Warriors received a lot of attention from the Razorback and Dreadnoughts. Unfortunately I wasn't able to try some wound allocation shenanigans to try and keep the unit alive as Mark didn't seem familiar with using the Primes higher toughness to take one wound from the Las-cannons instead of Instant Deathing a whole Warrior. I wasn't going to be an a$$ about it so we carried on and the unit slowly whittled down.

Turn 2 and the Trygon deepstruck  and deviated, he's so unreliable. Mark was very generous in that he said he was just on the board, which was nice and karma rewarded him later. He shot with his Bio-Electric pulse and killed two of the Marines. In hindsight I'm not so sure I should have put him here he may have been better in the centre of the board.

Anyway, his Assault Squad deepstruck and he too deviated. I think the scatter dice should have had them a little closer to the board edge but even if they'd have been two feet onto the next board I'd have let him have them land safely considering his generosity with the Trygon.

The Hormagaunts took a bit of a pounding so I sent the Termagants in to shore them up and hopefully secure the objective. As you can see the Warriors have been decimated, with only the Barbed Strangler having taken a wound and Prime left. The Strangler got a beautiful pie plate to cover the entire Assault Squad but it either deviated or failed to wound a single Marine :(

The Trygon charged into combat, I guess the Bio-Electric pulse failed to take anymore down, or I forgot to shoot, but the assault was immense...

it killed a fair few, enough to cause a Leadership check which they failed and chased them down and ate the lot. That was a pretty awesome result but the consolidation didn't take me very far in my attempt to tackle the Razorback.

The Termagants failed to do any damage to the Assault squad, neither did the Prime. Meanwhile over on the left flank the Stealers had taken some casualties but had spread out to capture the forward objective and take cover.

Having spawned out the Tervigon did what I thought was the sensible thing and went for the Razorback and also the central objective. As you can see the Plasma/Missile Dread was pretty much slaughtering Hormagaunts and Warriors with abandon thanks to his central location and hilltop vantage point.

The Librarian Dread had all sorts of psychic advantages that managed to whip it about the field I think. So he slaughtered the Warrior and Prime, they weren't even strong enough to do any damage to its ceramite hide. The Termagants and Hormagaunts were roasted by hand flamers and shooting from the Plasma/Missile Dread.

Here come the reinforcements. Again deviation and again Mark was quite generous. I'd hoped to get them back here to shoot the Assault Squad down and recapture the building objective. Again this was a bit of a mistake.

The Razorback disgorged it's troops and targeted the Tervigon who received a number of wounds. The Assault Squad then charged in and I think slaughtered it.

Over on the right the other Assault Squad made it into the building and captured the objective the Devgaunts may have been whittled down to nothing and over on the left the Stealers conga lined to try and capture the two objective but Mark was adamant that they could not reach both objectives. So the end result was a LOSS as he had two objectives to my one.

In conclusion I think I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory here. I overstretched myself. Perhaps if the Trygon had come in on the centre objective it could have cleared the Plasma/Missile Dread or the Razorback allowing the Tervigon space to capture. But then perhaps the Tactical squad it ate would have had free reign to go for the Stealer's objective. Definitely if I'd put the Spore Pod down to capture the other objective on the left I could have saved a draw at least but at the time I thought the Stealers could have got both. Either way I think I should have done better, objective scoring is this lists forté and I blew it by trying to capture all of the objectives instead sticking to two or three at the most.