Apocalypse WOW! 12,500pts of Armageddon - Turn 1

Having previous Apocalypse battles that turned into a turkey shoot for the nids a number of concessions had been put in place. We would get to go first, I'm not sure if some of the others are Apocalypse rules but ALL Deep Strikes could come in first turn, we ruled Ymgarls and Lictors could roll as normal for arrival on 3+ from turn 2. Taking int account how sketchy my report will be given the scale and my lack of knowledge of what was going on in Otty's 2/3rd of the board there's little benefit to detailing by psychic powers, although I was stuffed, with no Iron Arm for my Hive Tyrants and an unhealthy dose of Witchfire rubbish!

Anyway here's most of my setup. 21 fully loaded Hormagaunts on the right, Otty's Swarmlord, Tyrnat Guard and my Tyranid Prime deathstar hiding in the woods with +2 to their cover save thanks to the spore chimney. Flyrant next to them, 2 Biovores and my CC Tervigon. Where possible they were all biomorphed up and Regeneration sprinkled liberally.

Here's where my fully loaded Genestealers Infiltrated. Once again going bold instead of safe to secure the Broodlord's psychic powers. Ymgarls are in the far crater but will not arrive this turn.

BOOM! everything arrives via deepstrike. Doom in a pod, twin Spore Pods and Devgaunts, Trygon Prime and Flyrant next to the Stormlord. Other Flyrant swooped up to the ruins, still just in range of the Spore Chimney. Almost all of my Deepstrikes were on target or even if they deviated ended up good for ne. While on the other side the cries of frustration and despair indicated Otty was have less joy and as his Spore Pod mis-happed Ben graciously allowed it not to die ignominiously but instead positioned it in my corner, miles from nowhere.

I was able to root out the missile squad in the top floor of the ruins, either by Spirit Leech from the Doom or other sources, I mean the Sky Slasher Swarm had spinefists! Plenty of options for the culprit. We need to sweep the ruins so we could secure the green pod objective, a tough task but the Doom could surely do it.

I also got to destroy both Manticores, my biggest fear, before they could do damage.

Everything else moved forwards except the Swarmlord and my CC Tervigon which spawned out on 15

While my Plain Tervigon spawned out on 5! My Hive Guard advance for the Trees and to hold the Shrine objective, safe in the Spore Chimney shroud. Otty advance but with the Power Field Generator shielding the Warhound and super-heavies his BioTitan's targets were limited.

I think he ended up aiming for the Land raiders but the rest of his force swept onto the Titan's feet objectives.

While the far left flank occupied the woods and our objective.

I still think the Titan should have been turned to face us!

The Emperor's turn and Storm Raven arrives

Liam CAN paint!

Otty's Devourer Flyrant, sorry didn't mean to do a selfie.

Can you work out the 'dive bombing pose'?

The green tide swarms the Titan's feet.

The Bio Titan is the linch pin of our assault with a Venomthrope nestled underneath to offer roaming cover and backed up by a Tervigon.

A drop pod full of Grav Gun wielding Sternguard arrives, just in range of the Bio Titan, what followed wasn't pretty.

Now that's how you mount a Storm Talon and it's twin.

The Imperial Navy arrives on my flank and suddenly I've lost air superiority as 7 fliers turn up against my 2 Flyrants. That's right it was me that was 'power gaming' I forgot ;)

2 squads of Terminators deep struck in to try and blunt my alpha strike, alongside Guard Veterans dropped off behind the Vendetta. Additionally the Legion of the Damned appeared through some ethereal portal amidst the smell of brimstone.

The Flyrant eventually gets hit but manages to avoid being wounded but may have eventually been grounded.

Superheavy squad just shoots stuff up.

With my Flyrant on the ground [possibly, even without it was some stupid amount of shots that couldn't fail to damage given the weight of fire] the Ogryns and Vulcan Mega Bolter on the Stormlord tear into him.

And these were his 5 saves!

Bye, bye Flyrant.

My Sky Slasher Swarm gets blasted to smithereens.

A good portion of green has been wiped from the board 

The Sternguard in the pod on the left have taken down the Tervigon holding the objective in the wood.

1000-1500pts of Space marine Captains arrive on the Skyshield and combined fire removes one of Otty's Trygons. It seems one of their strategic assets gave them perfect deep strikes, no mishaps. 

Apparently they also had some dude giving them 5 assets, orbital bombardment hadn't done too well against us, thankfully.

But well enough, although this may have been the combined super heavy barrage that culled 3 Carnifex and a Zoanthrope despite the Spore Chimney save.

Meanwhile those Grav Guns, amongst others, had really taken a toll on Nancy - 8 wounds in one turn!

Things were not going so well, we'd been gaming for 2.5- 3 hours and only finished turn 1 and although the usual suspect in Ben's Imperial Guard had taken a beating his reinforcements had begun to smash great big dents in my alpha strike. With only my Ymgarls as reinforcements can I sweep that right flank...? 

Apocalypse WOW! 12,500pts of Armageddon - prelude to war

THAT friends is a Warlord Titan and THIS is some setup shots of my good buddies Liam, Ben and Otty's Apocalypse battle 2013

Liam brought his Crimson Fists and Imperial Guard to go up against my 4,003 and Otty's 8,500pts of Tyranids.

We used Otty's two beautiful snow boards, I swear to G.O.D. that there were times I could literally see the frost glittering in it. I was holding the right flank [with nothing 'Apocalyptic' at all, except for the Doom ;) ] against Ben who was using the Imperial Guard but with some Super Heavy Tank that's got a Vulcan Mega Bolter and was transporting a tonne of Orgyns and Commissar Yarrick.

Meanwhile on the left flank and most of the middle there was a green tide of nids including a Scythed Heirodule.

'Nancy', Otty's Bio Titan was set up in the middle and believe it or not the Warlord Titan was not taking part in the game, all it was there for was terrain! And to have both it's feet as objectives. The guys had decided that to run it in the game would have been pointless as it would have been nigh indestructible. And because of this ultimate flaw in it's use may be why Liam is looking to auction it on ebay. I'll certainly keep you all informed if this Titanic auction takes place!

Here's some more nids and Shrikes in the trees on the far left flank.

The Hormagaunts were raring to go.

And they had only a Fortress of Redemption and a wall of Land Raiders to overcome, seems doable.

Here, where you can see how we flocked the board to transition between Liam and Ben's tundra Battle Boards to Otty's winter world. We were so anal about this. There's all sorts of props and shims underneath this table to ensure there were as few disruptions to the playing field as possible. Not one single miniature was unpainted, they wouldn't even let me use my new unpainted Pyrovore as a Biovore proxy, instead I borrowed Otty's.

Here's a couple of pictures of the back of the Warlord.

And it's legs too. It's amazing how Liam was able to use sprue quite sparingly to break up the surfaces that belies how flat they are.

Screamer Killers ready to roll.

And from the front. The Mieotic Spore was one of three 'Spore Chimney' Strategic assets I chose that gave me Shrouded within 12" and pretty much was the only thinking keep me in the game, but Spoilers!

Here's the other Titan on show, Liam's scratchbuilt Warhound, which is beautiful and a Baneblade and a Shadowsword. They also took a Power Field generator as a strategic asset which meant we were unable to target them first turn :( 

A thing of rare beauty.

Liam's 'X-Wing' Storm Raven conversion. 

His Imperial Navy, erm, Scratchbuilt!!!

Yeah, this was my problem, do you think two Winged Tyrants, the Doom a Trygon Prime and 2 Spore Pods with 10 Devgaunts in each is going to end this?

Oh, I did have a Harpy!

Now that's a Storm Talon, this conversion is sweet, I think there's better pictures to come of it's twin though.

Anyway, that's just a taster of the forces on display. It took us 2.5hrs to set up on Saturday night, we started in anger at 9:30am and played on through to the Apocalyptic end at 9:10pm. Goodness knows how I will record what went on, and it may take a couple of posts. I have an idea of what my side was doing and a number of pics of Otty's side but I think the end result is irrelevant this is just pure hobby heaven so if the report makes no sense you'll enjoy the glorious flaming spectacle.