1500pts battle report - Caledonian Highlander 2 - Tyranids v Chaos Space Marines

Round 2 and I was drawn against Gary Marsh who runs Castigators Chaos. Gary was running Chaos Space marines, the only one in the tournament. Of interest was his Fire Raptor, Kharybdis Assault Claw and two Rapier Conversion Beamers. Anyway, the ETC format is full of scoring elements so I'm not sure how my report will reflect what went on but I'll do my best.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC TR Broodlord Dominion Dominion Dominion Onslaught The Horror The Horror Catalyst

The low down:

• Eternal War mission - the Relic
• Maelstrom missions
• Dawn of War
• I went second whatever happened with deployment and whoever went first.
• Warlord Trait - -1 to opponents reserve roll
• Not sure about night fighting. 

From turn 1 the Eternal War mission was pretty much scuppered.

Gary was able to pile forwards with Chaos Spawn in the centre of the board.

Then under their cover snatch the Relic with his Chaos Bikers and move out of reach. 

The Spawn then assaulted the Genestealers

and wiped them out with ease.

My turn 1 and I advance but the Relic looks pretty far away at this stage.

The Flyrant targets the bikers but I'm not sure if he actually killed a single model!

I think this guy was a 'master blaster' noise marine. He kept on sending a pretty impressive ignores cover blast into my nids, rendering my Malanthrope useless against those attacks.

This must be later in the game, Gary's Fire Raptor had come on. So had my Tyrranocyte and Rippers whowere trying to snatch Objective 4 out from under the cultists but to no avail.

Gary's Heldrake also came on, onceagain his attacks ignoring the shrouded effect of the Malanthrope. However, he was performing admirably in thwarting the Rapiers, their Conversion beamer shots failing to penetrate the spore cloud.

The Kharybdis came on my left flank to be in position to secure the objective in the ruin next turn. I was struggling to reach it with about 8 spawned gaunts and still stay within Synapse of the Tervigon on my Skyshield.

 The Fire Raptor set it's sights on the Flyrant.

And I became fixated on the awesome deamonette livery on the wings [like Charlie's Angels]/

but the flamework where the daemonettes were the negative space was even more impressive.

Up until it wiped my Flyrant off the board, Catalyst or not!

Next turn and the Heldrake Vector Struck either the Tyrannofex or Malanthrope and zoomed over to roast my spawned Gaunts.

The Fire Raptor re-positioned to dominate the centre.

The Asault Claw landed, disgorging it's cargo who promptly took up position underneath the objective in the ruin.

The Malanthope fell, leaving my advancing army far more exposed than they'd previously been. The Heldrake roasted all the spawned gaunts leaving my left flank completely open and uncontested.

With their mobile cover gone the Carnifex and Tfex started to take wounds alongside all the Hormagaunts being killed.

 The Tyrannocyte just about survived while the Rippers were wiped off the board.

Master Blaster managed to finish off my Tervigon, which despite the Skyshiled had taken 5 wounds already from the Fire Raptor.

Small comfort and the Tyrannofex makes a Herculean charge on the Rapier gunnery but with little success.

Not sure if I'd started to pack up here with all the objectives but that's all that was left of my Hive, I think the Carnifex had perhaps fallen too. I think the end score was something like 20-0, once you do all the differentials.

But once again it was a great game. Although I essentially lost turn 1 with the theft of the Relic, Gary was really great to play against. I was going down tables fast but looking good while doing it ;)

1 million

As the man says "I'm kind of a big deal" now. One million views, that's an impressive milestone I think one all bloggers aspire to. However, I'm probably not alone in thinking recently we've been having a lot more visits from our Eastern European bot friends so what this stat really means is anyone's guess. In truth it only amounts to about 10% of the global visits, that's not to say the other 90% doesn't contain bot traffic but who knows?

So although I'm proud of the figure now it's gone 7 digits I won't be chasing any more page view milestones for a while, it just doesn't make sense. I'm incredibly grateful for all the true visitors I receive, even more so recently as despite the lack of regular updates I'm still getting consistent visits [hopefully from real people]. And for those that are interested that traffic also generates between 1p and 4p a day in AdSense, regardless of clicking. Oh yeah, time to give up the day job and blog full time! ;)

Thank you everyone for your continued support, with a bit of luck I'll be back in the groove soon with plenty of content to share. Anyway for those that are still keeping track on their own blogs, should you feel in the need for GW themed numbers feel free to make use of the following [link or download, either or]:

1500pts battle report - Caledonian Highlander 1 - Tyranids v Necrons

Table draws had put me up against Anthony Chew and his 15 bikers, something Ben had suggested was a good draw for me [how little he knew]. Unfortunately traffic had been horrendous on the Saturday, we'd only just made it because they'd closed junction 25 of the M6 because someone had skidded in the random slushy conditions that morning. The end result being Anthony hadn't arrived so I was switched to play against Mike Bolton and his Necrons. Anyway, the ETC format is full of scoring elements so I'm not sure how my report will reflect what went on but I'll do my best.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC TR Broodlord Warp Blast Dominion Dominion Paroxysm Onslaught The Horror Dominion

The low down:

• Eternal War missions  
• Maelstrom missions
• Hammer and Anvil
• I think I lost deployment!
• Warlord Trait - -1 to opponents reserve roll
• Not sure about night fighting. 

Mike started with his line of Wraiths, warriors and Destroyers, with nine Tomb Blades behind that pale building.

I fortified the Hive in my usual deployment [don't worry I'm going to start doing different things in future, it's about time for a change]

The Destroyers got off to a good start, getting three wounds on the Tyrannofex, that really stung.

Obligatory first turn move forward.

In retaliation I managed to take out just two Wraiths with the Flyrant, while Mike had positioned them just out of range from the Carnifex [being lazy] and even the T-fex.

Turn 2 and despite the -1 reserve role all Mike's reserves arrived. The Deathmarks appeared and went for the biggest beast in their sniper scopes.

Killing the T-fex for first blood.

Tomb Blades screamed forwards, blasting the Genestealer to pieces with their 'ignore cover' weapons.

That flank was going to roll over, so I had to think about abandoning it with just the Broodlord and a few stealers to try and save. Meanwhile I got the rippers up to the top floor, hopefully out of sight to hold the objective but not be shot/assaulted. Unfortunately I found out my understanding of their Instinctive Behaviour rule was wrong. I was under the assumption Fearless meant you ignored the lower 1-3 role on the table but it appears that's only on specific IB charts and even then if it's a unit of more than one model then they can still turn on each other in 'Feed' - so my brood of 2 Carnifex are now at the same mercies [honestly I thought this Codex was bad, I'm still finding out just how bad it really is].

I moved a unit of spawned gaunts into the centre and the Carnifex still wouldn't break into a run.The Flyrant targetted the Doom Scythe but only put a Hull Point on it.

The Broodlord just couldn;t get away from the Tomb Blades, his retinue falling by the way side and suffering two wounds also.

Which became three!

The Flytant swooped behing the Doom Scythe but the Carnifex tried to bring it down first so he could switch targets to the Wraiths if necessary. Unfortunately the Carnifex managed just the one Hull Point so he had to finish it off leaving the newly arrived Hormagaunts and Spore Pod painfully outnumbered by the nearby Wraiths and Immortals.

The Tervigon's Miasma Cannon tried to damage the Tomb Blades but with little to no success.

Carnifex and Malanthope were only halfway up the board at this stage.

The Tyrannocyte got popped and the the Hormagaunts took cover in the woods.

The Flyrant got down to his last wound, I think he may have been grounded at this point.

Tomb blades advanced on the Skyshield and the Destroyer Lord separated to take out the Rippers who'd started to eat themselves without adult Tyranid supervision!

The flyrant managed to get a rediciulous number of overwatch shots on the Wraiths as they charged in, I think it was as many as 8, but Mike saved every one! He was obviously brought down by them and the game came to and end.

Final score was 16-4, unfortunately this was the only score sheet I remembered to photograph. So you can see what missions we made.

So I kept my record of never winning a first game, but more importantly it was a fun game and Mike was great to play against. I think he eventually came 4th overall, but did get up to the top table by round 4 so losing wasn't that bad really. Luckily I also managed to get a pic with him the next day, everyone was kind enough to conset to selfies, a tall order on the Sunday morning ;) .