Throne of Skulls Mar '13 - Battle 2, Tyranids Vs Necrons

Game 2 and time to get a win just like I did in October 2012, oh, Necrons and Wraiths too!

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC troop Tervigon Plain troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Iron Arm Iron Arm Iron Arm NA Haemorrhage Haemorrhage Warp Speed Enfeeble Enfeeble Doom of Malan'tai Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• The Relic.
• Vanguard Strike
• I setup first but lost the Initiative, it happens to all of us eventually.
• Warlord Trait - Master of Offence - Furious Charge in opponents deployment zone.
• Brian's Warlord Trait - -1 to my Reserve roll, again! :(

Brian Christie - Necrons (army list at end).

 I wasn't looking forward to meeting the Wraiths I can tell you. I'm well aware of their lethal potential so I was hoping that a good dose of Enfeeble and some heavy duty shooting from whatever I could get in range might diminish their numbers ahead of being spanked.

My Stealers were set up to try and steal the Relic and then get back behind the defence line but I wasn't going to hold my breath, especially with losing the Initiative and those 12" moving Wraiths.

My turn 1 and I make it to the Relic. I managed to Enfeeble the Wraiths nearest the Relic and took two of their number down. This may have been thanks to the Hive Tyrant but he may have targeted the Annihilation barge, I don't recall.

The remaining 3 Wraiths.

Oops, look who failed to finish 2nd turn. Once again the Hive Tyrant suffered wounds and with 3 on the clock crashed out of the sky and was killed outright - First Blood and Slay the Warlord, again!

The Trygon took 4 wounds as well.

Here comes the pain! The Wraiths get into assault but I've got some Iron Armed Tervigons who are hoping to smash face. However, I think they elected to target only the +1 plain Tervigon, who takes down one of the Wraiths in the squad of three.

So check out this 'To Wound' roll - 5 rending hits right there on the Tervigon.

Who promptly failed his remaining saves - POP!

The 15 Spawned [out] gaunts surround the two remaining Wraiths, while the CC Tervigon takes down two from the squad of five.

Followed by another two, but suffers three wounds in return.

The Grim battle unfolds.

15 Fleshborer shots and an assault was surprisingly enough to kill the last two Wraiths, yes I was surprised too!

Meanwhile the Trygon gets taken down, probably by Tesla fire from the Annihilation Barge and Night Scythes. One of the Hive Guard fails his morale check and heads back through the ruins, Synapse is a bit far away, lets hope he rallies of his own accord.

The Broodlord manages to reach the Defence Line with the Relic...

...but is shot, dropping it on my side of the line [following a 50:50 dice roll].

I bundle forward so I can surround the Relic, having dispatched the last of the Wraiths with my brutal Tervigon.

Termagants Conga line to try and get Linebreaker but stay within Synapse of the Tervigon.

While the Tervigon goes and picks up the Relic.

The termagants are shot out of Linebreaker

So I fall back, with the Doom arriving on turn 4 I use him as a life sucking buffer to prevent sneaky 'crons assaulting from the rear.

Five Termagants continue to push for Linebreaker.

Everyone repositions to better protect the Tervigon with the Relic.

"Stack 'em, pack 'em and rack 'em" The Cron air jostles for airspace and dumps a load of Immortals in my back field.

Unfortunately none of the Crons fail their Leadership for the Doom :(

The Termagants are shot off Linebreaker again

I'm guessing we know who's saving through this is!

Somebody needs 4's and above.

With 1 wound left and the Relic my Tervigon secures 3 VPs but Brian has also 3 VPs from First Blood, Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker.

Brian's army list:

A really good game. A tough slog with my Termagants ably dispatching the two Wraiths I'd so feared, but a unit of five was brutal on one of my Tervigon's. Once again the Hive Tyrant lost me the game, surviving only two turns and losing his last wound after being shot out of the sky. The Trygon was also a bit of a bust. On to game 3...

Throne of Skulls Mar '13 - Battle 1, Tyranids Vs Space Marines/Dark Angels

First game of ToS March 2013

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC troop Tervigon Plain troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Warp Speed Enfeeble Warp Speed NA Haemorrhage Life Leech Life Leech Haemorrhage Endurance Doom of Malan'tai Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• Big Guns Never Tire (4 VPs).
• Dawn of War
• I lost deployment
• Warlord Trait - 1VP for every character slain in a challenge.

Mat Garside (Stockport GW manager) - White Scar Space Marines, with Dark Angel Allies. Mat's army is wonderful representation of the White Scars. Extremely clean and detailed with scenic bases and a fantastic Khan on jetbike. Mat was also nominated for best army, so I'll share some more pics later.

So here's my setup with one objective inside the defence line and the other just in front of the termagants on the right flank 

Mat is holding one objective in the woods and the other is in the crater. He's killed three of the genestealers but I've got that Trygon who will be hoping to seize the objective in the crater and have follow up support from the Tervigon and its spawn of 9 gaunts.

The Winged Tyrant is well out of range.

More gaunts are spawned to saturate my deployment zone with scoring units.

On comes the Stormraven and his Storm Talon escort.

The other Storm Talon arrives on the right flank.

Khan and his biker squad also arrive on the right flank.

These guys are hoping to sweep my Termagants from my objective but I've plenty of firepower in my deployment zone.

Tactical squad on the left flank suffer a casualty.

The Trygon takes 3 wounds from the Storm Raven.

The Winged Tyrant ducks and dives through the sky. Evading small arms fire from the scouts in the wood, heavy fire from one of the Storm Talons but the second Storm Talon manages to draw a bead on the monstrous creature and it takes 3 wounds, then crashes out of the sky and dies from his injuries. [that's turn 2 folks, Slay the Warlord and First Blood to Mat :( ]

I Enfeeble Mat's bikers, kill two and wound the Khan

The Trygon regains a wound thanks to It Will Not Die, try doing that Catalyst!

The Tactical Squad lose another battle brother.

The Tervigon spawns more gaunts into the woods.

Another squad of bikes outflank me...

... and prefer to lay down some withering fire on the Trygon's unprotected rear who ends up on 5 wounds.

The Khan, learning the dangers of Enfeeble heads back into Mat's deployment zone.

Too many Devourers and Fleshborers eager to make soft work of Enfeebled bikers.

The Storm Raven splats a brood of Termgants which are positioned conveniently for blast templates.

The bikers assault the Trygon.

And make short work of him thanks to Hammer of Wrath.

Meanwhile Termagants spill forth from the woods to assault Mat's rear objective and I try to consolidate my objectives. Unfortunately my Broodlord fails to make it into assault with the hovering Storm Talon, even with re-rolls! He'll pay for that next turn!

Termagants assault the Tactical squad and the Tervigon captures the objective.

The Scouts reposition to assault the Termagants and the Storm Talon moves to lay waste the Stealers.

Khan does a dirty dive for my back field, line breaker and maybe contest my objective.

The Termagants die for only two marines.

The Tervigon is endured and Warp Speeded but suffers 3 wounds from shooting and then I make this roll for something, not sure what now but I don't think it was good.

Somehow a biker dies though so it can't all be bad.

The Doom eventually arrived but the Spore Pod was shot down and he took some wounds. The biker squad was reduced to 5.

And then bikes suffered this with I think the Librarian reduced to 1 wound.

And that's the last of the pictures. Mat flew the Storm Raven over to my Defence line Objective and contested next to my Tervigon. I was feeling a bit agitated as time was running out I was convinced the Storm Raven was Zooming so couldn't assault it with the Tervigon but afterwards my friends who were watching revealed that that was not the case and so the end result was 7-6 in Mat's favour.

With the post match discussion and the revelation that the Storm Raven sat on my objective and I could have Smashed it repeatedly with the Tervigon I realised I threw the win away on this one but I think it was my nerves that did it for me. The amount of people who were stood watching at the end was very surprising. Two great armies going head to toe. If I'd got that Storm Raven I'd have had the objective for 3 and 1 VP Heavy Support point for the vehicle. My mate Liam asked why I hadn't done that I was halfway to asking him why he didn't raise that question at the time only to remember how I had felt with my game against Dan and 'unsolicited advice'. Still we live and learn and I'll remember for next time. On to game 2.

On an unrelated note you may or may not have noticed that this post didn't arrive at the usual 12-1pm time. Currently I have a number of stories at rough draft stage, none of my battle reports are done and I have no other articles scheduled. I've also been a bit under the weather since returning from Warhammer World. Despite it being great fun I think there were a lot of nerves and unrealised pressure, added to the stress of the previous few weeks regarding my Dad and an Ofsted inspection a my son's school [of which I'm a Governor] and I've been feeling terrible all week. So I hope you will be patient with my current posting schedule. I will be getting round to each battle report as and when I can fit it in. Sorry for any inconvenience but give me a week or two and hopefully I will be able to return to the blog with renewed vigour.

1600pt battle report (of sorts) - nids Vs Space Marines

I had a 1600pt game a few weeks ago now in preparation for the MAWs tournament. It was at my Local friendly Neighbourhood Gaming Club and it was, I believe, my first game against Dan who started playing at the club round about the same time as me. He was using Space Marines but he also has a Dark Angel force, it was his Deathwing squad with Belial that I repositioned atop a building with no one to fight during our last club Apocalypse battle.

Anyway, there's not much to this battle report at all, sorry, but I felt it was important to share because the primary reason for this was my own attitude. Dan's a follower of the Facebook group so I hope he has no issue with this, he was a perfect gent and although I don't feel I spoilt the game I know inside I felt like a brat and I'm ashamed of that. What we have below is the situation after my first turn [ignore the alien in the bottom of the picture, my camera app did that]. As you can see everything is pretty much charging forwards and Dan has put a drop-pod down in his turn. Of note is the Trygon behind cover next to that objective in the centre of the board [I think we were playing Big Guns, which is why the Biovore is also holding and objective bottom right].

Here's a drop-pod from the 70's - cool huh?

Three Vindis with two wounds on the middle one.

So here's where I suck, this is Dan's turn one and his Librarian has driven forwards in the Rhino, used Psychic Shriek on the Trygon and I roll 3D6 for my Leadership and get 14! So instantly 6 wound Monstrous Creature is dead, no saves, no cover no nothing, Deny the Witch - fail, gone. To say I was put out was an understatement. What was I thinking? How many times has the Doom done similar to my opponent? They've suffered that and carried on playing, what happened to playing for fun? What happened to 'I don't care if I win or lose', this was a spectacular way to go and a valuable lesson, both in the power of Psychic Shriek [the Doom can take this as standard!] and not to underestimate my opponent and their psychic abilities.

So it was a difficult first turn and my attitude was soured but in my defence I'm sure I could have overcome this a little easier if a spectator wasn't constantly volunteering advice to Dan. I think even at this early stage it was evident he could hold his own and was doing so spectacularly, he's no beginner by any stretch. Having to come to terms with a heavy loss so early is difficult but feeling like you are being ganged up on as well makes it just that bit harder.

However, this was a valuable lesson for me, I've been too confident and perhaps masked my ego with a public display of 'sportsmanship' that perhaps was less genuine than it should have been. I'm not sure what the end result was, it's not really relevant but I hope my inner turmoil didn't spoil the game for Dan, he was a perfect gent and a genuinely nice guy and good player. If he is reading, apologies if I came across badly, you played a blinder and I appreciate what I will take away from this, good and bad.

Ultimately it was a learning experience for me and perhaps us all, which is why I've shared perhaps the worst of my behaviour. I hope I can move forward with that attitude of having fun, remembering that these games are still learning experiences and if someone is getting unrequested advice, it's so they can improve and be more challenging, much in the same way we did our kendo practices.

A freebie - Vehicle Damage Markers

Yet more free markers, I know, it's getting old now. Apologies if free stuff isn't your bag and this isn't even stuff I have actual need for, what am I thinking? Anyway it's actual counters for vehicle damage, a double of weapon damage, because who has just one weapon on a vehicle?

And there are also some hull point markers, they're like wound markers, just a bit industrial looking, or Imperial Fist or even Iron Warriors! You could even use them as wound markers should you feel that way inclined to match your markers to your army.

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.



Throne of Skulls March 2013 - Headsup

This is me and Mat Garside [Stockport GW manager] during my first game.

So, back from Throne of Skulls and I'll try to start writing up the battle reports but given I won 4 and lost 1 in October I was not expecting to do as well this time and I did not disappoint with 2 loses, 2 draws and one win but those headlines obviously do not tell the whole tale. I did however get nominated for best army again and also won 'Monument of Legend' [best fortification] for my Tyranid Aegis Defence Line :)

My mate Otty once again won 'The Scribe's Quill' for best army list [beating Liam's Chaos Marine helmet! So you know it must be good]. Liam won Beast of Legend, Best Vehicle, Favourite Player and was nominated for best army and Ben won all his games with Necrons becoming the most successful player amongst us. Not bad going really.

Anyway, if you want to check out the facebook album full of 248 photos of the event please check it out here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.579078605444957.1073741831.212614545424700&type=3