Throne of Skulls March 2016 - Battle 3, Tyranids Vs Space Marine Scouts and Imperial Knights

Scott was my last game of Saturday and I had to ask him to repeat his army list when he said 80 scouts! Yep, 80 Scouts, with sniper rifles, some with Flakk, a Terminator Librarian and Knight Warden with Icarus Autocannons.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant Tervigon Zoanthrope Broodkin Magus Dominion Dominion Dominion Psychic Shriek The Horror Psychic Scream Warp Blast Invisibility Catalyst Psychic Scream Mental fortitude Broodlord Dominion The Horror

The low down:

• Into The Maelstrom - Cleanse and Control
• Warlord Trait - Move through Cover/Stealth Ruins
• Night fighting first turn, won deployment, elected to go first!
• CARNAGE! effect:
• Rage - 2A on charge
• Counter Attack

I set up first, although with 80 scouts infiltrating it didn't take long for Scott to put down his Knight and Librarian. I then won the deployment to Infiltrate and positioned the Genestealers in such a way to make his Scout deployment a bit of a nightmare. Ultimately this would prove more a hindrance for me nut we'll get to that later.

I wanted to see off the Knight as a priority, so grouped the Carnifex together to make use of the central ruins, backed up by the Zoanthrope for synapse, supported by the Hive Guard and the Broodkin. I'd had a situation with Synapse last time so I didn't want the same issue.

At first glance I was OK withthese cards, I had the Horror on both the Flyrant and the Broodlord, shooting a unit was inevitable, only objective six seemed out of reach, being deep in Scott's DZ, surrounded by Scouts.

I swooped the Flyrant forward first turn, got Catalyst off and the Horror but the Scouts made their Leadership. The Broodlord's attempt was equally fruitless. I did manage to put a couple of wounds on the Knight though.

The Broodlord occupied the top of the far ruins with the Carnifex and Hive Guard advancing through the central one. I foolishly forgot to run the Broodkin to keep up.

The Knight advanced on the 9 Termagants spawned in my turn.

The weight of sniper fire managed to bring one of the Carnifex down, he may also have been hit by Psychic Shriek from the Librarian. This gave Scott First Blood, he also scored another 2 VPs, probably from killing a unit. He also destroyed the Purestrains, who's infiltrated in Scott's far corner, just to annoy. I must stop doing that it never ends well and is ultimately pointless.

The Zoanthrope perils while trying to get Warp Blast off, he dies again for his efforts

and again shoots the moon before hitting the intended target!

The Horror fails to cause a pinning test, this time failing to manifest enough successful Warp Charge to cast the power. In frustration the Genestealers assault the Knight [which may have taken some more damage of the Flyrant]

The Rage attacks manage to destroy the Knight, but still no VPs as I'm scoring only in the shooting phase. It was about now that we both realised that unlike the last game you can actually discard objectives in this mission, although to be fair my cards were still achievable.

The Knight scattered into the crater.

It exploded, wiped out a lot of the newly spawned 16 gaunts

and took out some of the Genestealers too, leaving the Broodlord with just two bodyguards.

The Stealers consolidated back into the Ruins.

Meanwhile, on the next table Otty was facing down Tau

With a pretty epic swarm heading to the gunline. 

Scott managed to score Objective 3 in his Turn 2 for his 4th VP, I hadn't even got off the starting blocks with these damn cards. The Tyrannocyte arrives from reserve, hoping to score objective 6, but deviates back onto some Scouts. Luckily it goes into ongoing reserve. 

Genestealers and the Flyrant try to get the Scouts pinned, but fail yet again. The Stealers assault Scouts

But they prove beyond them when an Imperial Knight was not.

Scott manages to kill the second Carnifex for another VP and sent Scouts to support the last man standing against the Genestealers,

The last Carnifex falls to Sniper Fire and most of the Broodkin fall foul too.

The Scouts prove an effective tarpit on the Stealers and I still can kill enough of them to break free [bring on hit and run!].

My Turn 4, the Tyrannocyte arrives from reserve, the Rippers manage to get to Objective 6. The Flyrant Vector Struck the Librarian, taking his last wound off him, so much for Terminator armour and securing Slay the Warlord. The Psychic Phase and I need a rules check - the Horror is a Malediction that causes a Pinning check. You can cast those in Assault and on those in Assault. It causes the victim to go to ground, but there doesn't seem to be any information if that is possible or not when in combat. The end ruling was I managed to cast the Power and the unit was pinned, but can't go to ground. That got me a VP, if the Stealers can kill the Scouts then I get 2. Unfortunately they do neither and they then pass a morale check and Scott points out that there were two units of Scouts there anyway

The game comes to an end at the close of turn 4, the events team said we could play on but Scott was happy to end it there. I'd scored 4 VPs to his 5. Carnage points I'd picked up 46 and lost 71. I have to admit I'd been frustrated in this game, the cards had proved elusive, they were all easily achieved but I just couldn't seem to get them. Additionally because I'd forced his Infiltration to be spread out I ended up in a situation where I couldn't actually target things I needed to do to get VPs.

I'd also failed to use my Broodkin, forgetting to move them up quicker and I'd thrown away my Purestrains for nothing. I'm sure with another couple of turns I could have tipped the balance, even managed to get more Carnage points but it wasn't to be. I also killed another Knight, which was pretty cool, although I didn't get any points for it :( Anyway, two loses and a draw, what can I do on day 2?

Throne of Skulls March 2016 - Battle 2, Tyranids Vs Imperial Knights

When I'd been looking at the ToS: Carnage Facebook page I'd seen there was a 4 Knight list going, but this was not it. This was a Baronial court controlled by Sam, including a Cerastus Castigator as the Baron, Cerastus Lancer, Paladin with Icarus Autocannon and Warden. So yeah, I was bit shocked but I've faced three before at Blog Wars and managed to kill one and take two to half their hull points. The main concern was the Icarus

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant Tervigon Zoanthrope Broodkin Magus Dominion Dominion Dominion Psychic Shriek Paroxysm Psychic Scream Warp Blast Hallucination Onslaught Paroxysm Mental fortitude Broodlord Dominion The Horror

The low down:

• Into The Maelstrom - Spoils of War
• Warlord Trait - Warlord and three units Infiltrate
• Night fighting first turn, won deployment, elected to go first!
• CARNAGE! effect:
• Rage - 2A on charge

Having learnt from the last game I chose to go first rather than weather the storm of shooting. I was incredibly fortunate with the ruins on the left and my warlord trait got me to position two Carnifex far forward with the Flyrant and Hive Guard [not to mention the Stealers and Broodlord]. The third would arrive in the Tyrannocyte, hopefully getting rear armour shots on the Knights when it deployed.

One point of note is that the Cerastus were not glued to their bases so will feature in later pictures 'in repose', but more on that later.

Broodkin supported my left flank, with the Rippers on the far right.

Carnage cards were drawn

At the end of my turn I'd managed to put three Hull Points on what I felt was my greatest threat - the Icarus toting Paladin. I was quite pleased with this as a start.

 I'd advanced everything else, using the one story ruins to screen the Stealers and Carnifex, the second MC not moving quite as quickly so remaining stuck in the ruins. In leaning across the board to move the Flyrant the whole Realm of Battle board shifted and the Cerastus Lancer tipped back off the base, it was only Sam's quick hands that caught but even a couple of other players stopped to commend his catch while I apologised profusely - my clumsiness at these events know no bounds. The Lancer was rested in the corner for safe keeping and the Paladin moved over to that corner also. Sam was unable to achieve any Carnage missions.

My turn 2 and the Genestealers, Purestrains and Carnifex break through the back wall of the ruins and set their sights on the Paladin

The Tyrannocyte lands behind the Castigator and Warden with just enough room for the Flyrant to join them for rear armour shots. Meanwhile the Broodkin and the Carnifex follow the path made by the other Genestealers and Carnifex. I think the Hive Guard were out of Synapse and so fled back but I moved the Zoanthrope up to try and recover synapse, hopefully next turn at the latest.

The unholy brood got to grips with the Paladin

and three penetrating hits managed to end it for First Blood before he could destroy them.

Luckily only a couple of Stealers and the Purestrains suffered in the ensuing explosion. More importantly the Knight was down and I scored 4VPs for 'under a tide of flesh' - outnumber your opponent 3 to 1.

The Castigator managed to kill the Carnifex getting Sam 2VPs for killing something and killing it in a shooting phase.

I think the Warden focused his efforts on the Flyrant as the Carnifex somehow managed to survive this turn.

Turn 3 and the second Carnifex bursts free of the ruins and joins the Broodlord to hunt the Castigator, it looks like it's on two wounds at this stage.

With the Flyrant on one side and Carnifex on the other I think I was able to force the Lancer to commit to shielding one side and exposing the other. It was interesting to not that the shield only changes position in the beginning of the shooting phase so positioning a shot with Warp Blast in the Psychic Phase means you can out-manoeuvre that saving throw.

With some awesome dice rolls I managed to get these three glancing blows.

And 4 Hull points in total

Unfortunately the Carnifex and Broodlord were less effective than I'd hoped this time around. The Carnifex went into the combat with three wounds so when the Baron activated his Tempest blade he was killed and the Broodlord was instakilled. So much for Paroxysm hoping to prevent him hitting!

The Baron consolidates and the Warden manages to take out the last Carnifex.

The Warden also targeted the Tyrannocyte so charges and kills it, scoring 2 VPs for 'go for the throat'.

The Lancer manages to get into combat with the Tervigon

Unsurprisingly the brood mother is no match for the knight gaining another VP

Luckily very few Termagants pop with synapse and as they're still within Synapse range of the Zoanthrope they all huddle beneath the Skyshield out of sight of the Lancer and out of range. Unfortunately the Venomthrope fails his move through cover rolls, getting just a 2" move and is left on top of the pad, however that misfortune would in fact prove extremely lucky! With one of my models still on the pad it remains 'claimed' for the nids and with the Knight on it he was protected on all sides by the force field, but I still had the power to turn the field off.

I threw all my Warp Charge dice at the Zoanthrope, trying to Lance it to death, the zoie Perilled and ultimately died with the shock making it's shooting attack miss completely.

The Hive Guard still managed to put shots on the side and the Lancer was taken to just 1 Hull Point and then tragedy struck. In the middle of talking Sam gestured with his hand and caught the Castigaor knocking it onto the floor shattering it into it's constituent parts [you can see it's remains in the background] it was utterly horrific and I felt so bad for him, even more so when immediately after the Flyrant managed to get the last Glancing shot on his exposed rear armour. Blowing it up and not even touching the Venomthrope. A moment later I realised I'd made that attack without applying his Jink Snap Shots. I re-rolled the dice, managed to get two hits and one glance, the Lancer remained destroyed. This scored me 3 VPs

With the game in it's final turn Sam was able to bring the Flyrant down scoring a VP for killing a unit in the shooting phase, another for destroying a unit, a third for it being a Monstrous Creature and lastly Slay the Warlord.

The game was over and I thought I had it in the bag but my record keeping hadn't taken into count some of the card's VP values and modifiers. I thought I had 8 VPs to Sam's 7 but when it was totted up correctly he had 9 and then I checked my own and realised I'd not included the Broodkin and their Linebreaker leading to a 9 all draw. Given the shattered Castigator I thought that was the best result all round.

More importantly I'd killed two Knights and taken the Baron to just 1 Hull Point. So not only was I not going to lose every game I actually had overcome one of the worst lists imaginable. My tactics were sound, my army was proving itself and aside from the loss of the Flyrant things had gone really well. Carnage points wise I scored 51, but gave up 96. A really great game and it's definitely changed my attitude to Knights.

40k Terrain Competition Update - The competition rules!

Just a little update to confirm the prize fund for the Imperial Knight Warden has been reached. Any further clicks will go to cover a second place prize of a £10 voucher.

In a bid to make things more official you should be able to see the Competition tab at the top of the page [or click that link]. Please leave a comment if you send an email entry, or if you have any questions. I've shared the competition on reddit and on Faeit but aside from Nick's 'Where's Weston' and his continued updates on an impressive piece of terrain, that may not be quite complete by the end of the month, I've had no actual entries. Which is fine, deadline is a fortnight away afterall, but it's be interesting to know if folk plan on having a go.

All the best and good luck!