Friday 14 November 2014

Blog Wars 8 1850pt battle report game 2 - nids vs Grey Knights/White Scars

Sam Georgiou was up next, Josh's gaming buddy. He had Grey Knights, with White Scar Allies. I haven't really played against Grey Knights since PeteB got rid of his. If you recall PeteB often ran two Dreadknights so I should have been a little more prepared but I've probably forgotten much of my tactics.

Psychic Powers
Winged Tyrant Tervigon Plain TrTervigon Miasma
Warp BlastThe HorrorOnslaught
CatalystDominionDominion
Dominion



The low down:
  • Game 2 - The Emperor's Relic with Vanguard deployment
  • I won deployment and went first
  • Warlord Trait - Deathleaper has Mindeater - +2VP for every IC slain in a challenge
  • Night fighting turn 1.
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures until after turn 1 so you'll have to make do with the following description of the action. I was lucky in that our board had plenty of ruins so I had plenty of options to deploy the Genestealers successfully.  However Sam set up a unit of bikes in the right hand ruins, denying me access to the far right one but seemed to miss the fact the one further into his DZ had a first floor, so I deployed a unit there. 2 Broods were in the centre ruin and Deathleaper was to Deep Strike. In my turn 1 the Flyrant swooped towards the bikes that are shown driving off to the left. Brainleech worms did some significant wounds and Sam tanked them on the Space Marine captain who promptly failed his saves, died and gifted me First Blood!

My objective was in the Cathedral, surrounded by a brood of Stealers. I moved the Tervigons forwards hoping to push towards Sam's objective and reinforce the middle one I already owned. I foolishly forgot to spawn more gaunts. in fact thanks to trying to cast Warp Blast I forgot a number of things as because it's a Witchfire you automatically think you're in the Shooting Phase and carry on shooting and miss elements from a previous phase. I spread out my gaunts hoping to cut off the bikers that were trying to flank me and sneak for my objective.


I also deployed a brood in the cathedral in the centre of the board, with the centre objective [I only put one Stealer down as it was difficult to get my hand in].


Sam's objective was behind this hill.


Sam then decamped from the ruins and headed for his own objectives, moving the Dreadknight backwards to deal with the Stealers in his DZ...


which he promptly did by roasting them alive.


Bye, bye Linebreaker.


The Carnifex managed to do some damage to the dreadknight.


But was clearly punished for it's temerity, even with Catalyst and it's Feel No Pain. Honestly, all the hops you have to jump through to get the power and then it doesn't flippin' work!


Deathleaper arrives turn 2 and smashes open the Cathedral doors.


Shooting at Draigo and his Grey Knights but doing little. He then closes the doors and waits.


I charge the Genestealers into the Dreadknight, but can't bring myself to throw in the Tervigon too as I'm convinced it'll just get pummelled taking the Termagants with it. As a troop I need to keep him safe but this may have been a tactical error as the Stealer fail to capitalise on their weight of attacks on the charge.


With the Tervigon and some spawned gaunts holding the centre objective the Stealer brood  sally forth and assault the Terminators, one Grey Knight falls to the ultimate assault creature


3 Genestealers fall to the chopping Halberds and Hammers [sounds like an RPG]!


The second unit of Knights drop in behind my line, Sam went bold and only deviated a couple of inches, sadly no mishap and Interceptor on my Quad Gun does nothing


Unfortunately they can't really see anything to shoot so I get a healthy cover save meaning my Stealer remain intact while the second blob of gaunts head behind the Bastion to reinforce my objective and bubble wrap against the Paladins.


The other gaunts spread wide but that dreadknight can jump so they won't stop it, then again I probably should have charged and locked it in combat but I was trying to make a wide screen offering options to all three objectives.


Bikers and Assault Bikes multi-assault my termagants locking them in combat.

I do a couple of wounds but suffer a few dead and remain locked.


Dreadknight and stealer continue to play patty-cake, then the brood of three Hit & Run towards the locked Terminators leaving space for the Tervigon to move in next turn.


Deathleaper eventually joins this assault, challenges, Draigo accepts takes all six S6 rending attacks on his armour and then smears Deathleaper across the Cathedral walls [ultimate assassin creature my a$$]


The last Stealer is chopped to pieces too and the unit consolidates.


Th Stealer Brood from my objective charge the Paladins, losing 2 Stealers to 1 Paladin :(


Hive Guard join the 2 remaining stealers who are splatted, but the added bulk of the Hive Guard prevails


And the Dreadknight finally falls while the other brood attacks Draigo's unit who are more than happy to take them on thanks to their psychic powers and Apothecary.


I'd debated long and hard where to send this Tervigon, with time running out we didn't have enough turns from to reach Sam's objective with spawning gaunts so I sent the tervigon to shore up my own objective and spawn more gaunts round it and landed the Flyrant to capture Sam's but although he survived some Multimelta fire, lost full control of the objective by the contesting bikes. Draigo [as a uber-scoring unit in BW8] contested the centre objective so my objective was where the final showdown would take place. The Dreadknight wisely disregarded the Tervigon and managed to roast all but two Termagants holding my objective. The Dreadknight charges and out of it's 5 monstrous attacks manages to kill just one of the valiant defenders. Unbelievably I've won 7:2 ... except I haven't yet, we forgot Hammer of Wrath so Sam rolls and unsurprisingly wounds. If I make my Armour Save I've won... that would a 6 I need then... doh!


So the final score was 17:2, 15 + Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker for Sam and First Blood and Linebreaker for me. This was a great game, Sam was very Tactical throughout, which given the limited units he had to secure/contest/defend three objectives he did amazingly. I was utterly let down by the psychic phase and Deathleaper in particular. Seriosusly, Deathleaper only had to take one wound off Draigo with six attempts and couldn't do it, pathetic! Once again the Stealers were the most pivotal units. even if they did very little it was them holding units at bay or being the first turn targets in Sam's DZ which meant he wasn't advancing and picking on my bigger more valuable scoring



Wednesday 12 November 2014

Blog Wars 8 1850pt battle report game 1 - nids vs Necrons

First up was Josh with a C'Tan shard, Overlord in a command barge, Necron Scarab Swarm and allied Helbrute formation! Josh intoduced himself as only recently returned to the hobby so still very much a 40k newb which boded well for me considering I seem to be regularly beaten by those either new to the game or new to their army. In particular Tyranid noobies seem to beat me without fail!

Psychic Powers
Winged Tyrant Tervigon Plain TrTervigon Miasma
The HorrorWarp BlastCatalyst
OnslaughtDominionDominion
Dominion



The low down:
  • Game 1 - Cleanse the Xenos with Hammer & Anvil deployment
  • I won deployment and went first
  • Warlord Trait - Deathleaper has Mindeater - +2VP for every IC slain in a challeneg
  • Night fighting turn 1.
Having found enough Genestealers to replace those I'd left G.O.D. knows where I  deployed 15 in the ruin in Josh's DZ. The remaining Manufactorum Genestealers occupied the middle ground alongside Deathleaper.

The remaining force spread out in my back field to keep them away from weapons and hopefully prevent the Helbrutes materialising.


And let battle commence.


Hive Tyrant swoops forwards, Genestealers stay put, they can't assault anyway so may as well keep them there. Carnifex advances alongside the Hive Guard.


With so many Scarabs heading my way I repositioned the Tervigons to potentially pump out some bubble wrap.


I unleashed the Flyrant on the C'tan and Brainleech Worms took 2 wounds off it.


Josh spawned more Scarabs, a risky tactic in Purge the Alien as you're just adding more VPs to the table, but he seemed unperturbed.


They skittered forwards and assaulted Deathleaper


He killed a couple but was swarmed asunder giving Josh First Blood and a healthy dose of VPS. Meanwhile the Command Barge assaulted the Genestealers in the centre ruin, killing a couple and the C'tan headed for the Stealers in the DZ ruin and may have killed the brood [or was this Josh's First Blood?]. A unit of Scarabs also assaulted the Stealers, only killing a couple due to the difference in Weapon Skill and strength/toughness.


With the Scarabs exposed the Carnifex peppered them with Brainleech worms, double strength insta-killing 9 bases!


The Flyrant also made use of Brainleech living ammo to shoot the C'tan.


Who promptly exploded, somehow it must have been ground as it only took one wound. Not sure how that happened.


With no other targets the remaining Genestealer assaulted the already engaged Scarabs and wiped them out. Meanwhile some of the Spyders took wounds.


The unengaged Stealers in the centre ruin joined their brood siblings and attacked the barge.


With some heavy duty Rending hits


The Command Barge was gone and thankfully didn't reanimate. A healthy crop of VPs for me.


Some strange smoke erupted from the wrecked vehicle! What? I'm forging a narrative here!


I think that Obyron joining the Warriors there, hoping to take out the wounded Flyrant.


Yet more Scarabs, and they're hungrily looking at all that Bastion to eat because I bubble wrapped the Carnifex.


Half the Scarabs assaulted the Hive Guard I think I came out better only losing one Hive Guard but we're all Fearless so we remain locked.


The Scarabs get they're nibblers on the Bastion


And reduce it to a sloppy mess, taking the Quad Gun and the Venomthrope with it.


With the Flyrant on the ground everyone assaults and Obyron accepts the Flyrants challenge and gets eaten.


As the ground up pieces of living metal fall to the ground they coalesce back into the Necron hero and his learning protocols remove all challenge acceptance confirmations for a Tyranid bioform of this scale.


Spyders eat through a brood of Genestealers.


Carnifex assaults the other Spyders, does some damage but comes off just as bad with MC Vs MC.


The Flyrant bashes Warriors but still can't get to Obyron, the Spyders head to break the stalemate.


More spawned gaunts join the Hive Guard but they begin to take casualties and the melee remains locked.


Helbrutes finally materialise, they put some damge on a Tervigon but mostly it remains unharmed.


Eventually time is called and we tot up the results 793 +2VP [Line Breaker and Slay the Warlord] to Josh's 919 +3VP. I was actually quite surprised I didn't do more damage and had been lucky as a lot of  my units were not passed the half strength mark so hadn't scored. I know I killed a lot of scarabs, which aren't much points but the Command Barge wasn't cheap. Perhaps the relief I felt not having to tackle the Helbrutes backfired in that essentially those points never got a chance to be secured by me, although I'm not so sure what could have taken them, probably the Carnifex...

Anyway, aside from the super quick deployment [all things considered] this was another typical first game loss but a fun game. Josh was quite apologetic about his list but although Scarab swarms aren't a fun concept I never once felt I wasn't enjoying the game and as I said at the beginning experience is no guarantee for success. Anyway, on to game two.

Josh and I mid game from From the Fang