Friday night game

Last weekend I took a trip up north to play a friend over at his house and to give his tournament list a run out. It also happened to be his first game of 8th. The tournament, Northern Invasion 5, is a 1000 point no lords of war tournament and I had decided to play the 14 command point list that I wrote about in a previous post. My opponent was playing a monster heavy tyranids list.

For a quick recap, my list included Creed, 2 company commanders and a MT prime, a MT command squad, 2 commissars, 5 infantry squad, a MT squad, 3 sentinels, 2 lascannon heavy weapons squads and finally a wyvern.

My opponents list consisted of a Brood Lord, Old One Eye, a Malanthrope, 15 genesteelers, 2 ripper swarms, 2 carnifex's and a trygon. Quite a small and compact army, but a hard one to take down, with lots of big tough multi-wound models.


Setup

Setup was simple, with the board being only 4x4. This did give me a bit of a problem, as it bunched up my troops more than I would have liked, but ultimately it didn't make much of a difference to the game. We also used the mission setup from last year, with 3 objectives across the centre of the board (with one dead centre) and one objective each to place anywhere on the board. The centre ones would be worth 2 points with the other worth either 1 or 3 points, 1 point for holding yours and 3 for holding the enemies. This worked alongside kill points (one for each unit) and the standard first blood, line breaker and slay the warlord.

The board. A 4x4 3d affair.

The tryanids deployment, 5 monsters.

The guard deployment and a few more than 5 models!

Turn 1

The game started well for me, as despite having about twice as many drops during setup, I managed to steal the initiative. Its abouthere that my luck changed. I moved up the sentinels to take the objectives early, trying to force my opponent in to focusing on them early in the game. With very little in shooting range first turn and some of what was in range not in line of sight, my choices were limited. However, my lascannons were all in range and could draw line of sight on to old one eye, however, they failed to do the job, only managing to take 7 wounds between 6 lascannons! There shooting didn't improve through the rest of the game.

Minimal damage

After a bit of a disastrous start, things didn't get much better. The trygon popped up with the genestealers, who promptly charged the sentinel sitting on one of the objectives, although the trygon failed his charge on the other sentinel on the center objective. The Steelers did there work on the sentinel but left it alive on one wound. Everything else moved forward.

Genestealers charge.

Turn 2

This turn started with a tactical withdrawal, namely the sentinel in combat with the stealers. This left them open to fire from the wyvern, who really should have done better. With 4d6 shots, I should have been shooting at least 12 a turn, as it was I didn't get double figures on 2 turns and was only above average on one turn.

Stealers feel the pain.

In other shooting, the lascannons failed again. Shooting at the trygon and failing to put it down. With 12 wounds, 6 lascannons with a possible output of 36 damage should of been enough, but no, whilst it did damage, it want enough.

bottom the bottom of turn two.

In response to my attempt to wipe out the Stealers, they moved forward and assaulted one of my infantry squads, along with the Broodlord(?)

The Guardsmen stand and receive the charge......

And promptly die.

The only bonus was that the stealers removed so many guardsmen that the Broodlord ended up 5 inches from the closest guardsmen and so was unable to strike when his turn came. As a result, the squad was not wiped out in combat. On the other side of the table, things were not going quite so well. The central Sentinel was destroyed by the combined attacks of the Malanthrope and the Trygon, while the far Sentinel was reduced down to a couple of wounds.

The sentinel pilot bravely stands his ground

But dies to a flurry of claws

Also forgot to mention, at the end of the movement pahse a squad of Rippers decided to pop up on the objective that the stealers had just vacated and another squad had appeared on the central objective. This central squad in particular were to become a thorn in my side for the next couple of turns. 

Turn 3

At this point in the game, i'm starting to get nervous. The big monsters were steadily advancing with little I could do about it and I was loosing control of all the objectives across the centre of the board.
I decided it was time to throw caution to the wind a little and push up. I pushed up on the right to move towards the centre objective and take out the rippers. I also decided to push forward to try and take on the centre monsters. Again, my lascannons massively underperformed, but they did manage to finally manage to kill of the trygon. It had only taken about 15 lascannon shots to strip 12 wounds or so, Crack shooting by the guard as always. At this point in the game my memory gets a little fuzzy. I know that the stealers were removed this turn, but I cant remember if it was because I fell back from combat or if my unit was destroyed and the stealers were removed in the next assault phase. I have a feeling that they were destroyed by shooting, which would mean that my guys fell back, but I really don't remember. Oh, and those rippers, yeah, two squads shooting with orders removed 1 base from the centre squad and I did a couple of wounds to the bottom squad. Not great.

Some time at the top of turn 3

I do know that in reply the right hand sentinel was finally destroyed after lasting a lot longer than it had any right to. Apart from that I cant remember what happened.

Turn 4

This turn I had to try and either hold up or kill off some of the monsters, with the lascannons again under performing and 6 of them didn't managed to finish off another of the monsters up on the top, I cant honestly remember which one they targeted, all the tyranid monsters look that same to me! Lots of shooting from the squads at the top tried to remove the rippers off the objective and failed. This was a problem for me, as I had hoped to drop in my scions on the objective, to enable me to bring both the melta guns and all the plasma guns to bare on the tyranids, in the end they dropped down further away and were unable to target what I wanted to. The infantry squads then went and charged the Malanthrope and Broodlord. Unfortunately they weren't very successful.

After the charge

After combat

The Tyranid turn was pretty short, mostly due to the fact that he had no shooing and most of the monsters were either in combat or charged into combat. It was nonetheless a bloody round, with a number of guardsmen slaughtered.

Post combat 

At the end of turn 4, the tyranids were right up in my lines, with 5 monsters still alive and 3 of them in pretty healthy condition. I was confident that I could claim objectives, but with the amount of units that I had lost, I was unsure if I could actually win the battle.

Turn 5

It was all or nothing now, and so I went all in. The remaining squad at the bottom of the table moved up and advanced, later they received an order to move again, and with a second good advance roll they moved up to capture the objective, after the wyvern and scions had removed the last remaining rippers. The last squads on the right flank charged in to the various monsters, or continued their assaults, all of which were reduced to nothing but mush. I cant remember who finished off the Broodlord, but I have a feeling it was the heavy bolter from the Wyvern.

Just before the squad advanced

The last ripper

The last ripper in the centre had become a problem and had cause me so many problems. In the end I had to resort to shooting it with overcharged plasma guns to remove it, after I had moved up to just within the 3" range with one of the Scions. Two obliterated the ripper in the centre and two shot at the rippers at the bottom before the squad there advanced. The centre scions just moved on to the centre objective, forgoing any shooting to capture the objective. 

3 central objectives claimed

Scions moving on to objectives

The last change of the Wyvern

The wyvern also charged in to one of the tyranid monsters, in an attempt to stop it moving to capture my objective. Which in some respect worked. Unfortunately, a different monster, the Malanthrope charged in to one of the Heavy Weapons Squads, after finishing off my infantry squad during my turn and then consolidated down on to the objective anyway. 

End game

So, at the end of the game I held 2 of the three 2 point objectives and also my opponents objective for 3 points. I did however loose my objective at the very end of the game, giving away 1 point and letting my opponent gain 3 points. The Tyranids also held one of the 2 point objectives, meaning that objectives wise, I won the primary objectives 7 to 5. I also claimed first blood and slay the warlord and well as line breaker, where as my opponent only manage to claim line breaker, meaning that I won on the tertiary objectives 3 to 1.

The centre of the board, bottom and centre objective held by me, the top objective held by the tyranids. The objective in the ruins held by the Scions, was actually my opponents objective and worth more points.

Unfortunately, the Malanthrope (the black base) holds my objective

Meaning that I was sitting on a 10 to 6 lead at this point. I was at this point however, that things went slightly wrong. The secondary objectives were based on kill points, I had wiped out 6 units but my opponent has wiped out a good chunk of my army. In total he managed to kill 11 units. This gave him 17 points, compared to my 16. So a Tyranid victory, 17 to 16. It was a lot closer than I though that it would be but in the end, if we had of played on further it would likely have ended up worse for me as I had nothing to really answer to the monstrous creatures. Luckily the tournament is fixed at 5 rounds and also it was gone 1am when we finished round 5 and past my bed time.

While I think that I played well, I would have changed a few things, namely that I would have dropped in my scions earlier, dealt with the rippers earlier and then been able to bring the plasma guns to bare on there intended targets, something I was unable to do, as I left it to long and the rippers got in the way. Also I think I should have used more command points, as I ended up with quite a few points left. In some respect I think that 14 points is too many for this game with the limited stratagems, but with the release of the new codex that will change.

I have also learnt since we played this game that the set up of the tournament will be changing, with just 4 fixed objectives and with Slay the Warlord, First Blood and Line Breaker, no kill points. So working on the new setup, chances are I would have won the game 7 to 5, but that's really a guess, as I think we probably would have played slightly differently, due to the differences in the mission setup.

club open day

A couple of weekends ago the local gaming clubs, 2 or 3 of them, depending upon who you talk to, got together for their annual open day. The event is held at the community center, with an open door to everyone passing through. While its not the most visited attraction it does generate a fair bit of interest, even if that interest is just from those passing by, going to other events or clubs in the building. This is the 2nd time we've run the event and this year I pushed for a 40k presence, as last time this was lacking. Unfortunately my pushing led to me being picked to organize and run the table! With some help from a couple of other members we managed to pull off quite a good show, even if we only played two games! 

We decided to run a simplified version of the game, removing a lot of the more complex to hit and wound system. As such all units were given a basic to hit and to would roll, 3+ for both rolls for marines and 4+ for guard and all were given a set saving throw, regardless of the weapon shooting. We thought that this wouldbe the easiest way for new players to get into the game quickly, something GW have also done with the Battle for Vendros" sets. For the actual game we again borrowed from GW, using the Lost Patrol idea, only on a full size mat rather than a hex tile system. 

A small display of models, from terminator's and chapter masters through to Scions and a Company command squad

The various force options played out, Tactical Marines, Scout Marines, Scions, Imperial Guardsmen and/or veterans. At the back are the various vehicles used for extraction.

Unfortunately, I have lost the pictures from the actual games end our table layout, including a very cool setup with some old skool Kasrkins guarding a landed Valkyrie. It looked awesome, two flames each side of the tail ramp, a rifleman standing just by the wings facing backwards, having just stepped out of the side doors, and a sgts standing in the jungle clearing to the rear, looking expectantly to the jungle for the remnants of the guard squad they'd been sent to extract.

The games we played went rather well, with the scouts from the first game holding there position in the center, taking on all the nids that came within range with only one casualty due to close combat. The second game saw a squad of marines annihilating all before them as they moved at will over the board. Both games were played by young kids, about 8/10 years old and they seemed to enjoy the games, one only stopped playing because his mum told him he had to leave! Hopefully the seeds have been planted.......

There were a few issues with the game though that will need ironing out, namely the fact that the nids kept running off the table! We went for a standard 6" move in a random direction. This resulted in several units running on and then running off in quick succession! On one occasion it was a 20 "man" squad of termagaunts! Not sure how to fix this apart from keep rolling until they don't run off the board!

I hope to run this again at the club one day, but set it up a bit, make it harder and more likely to fail, challenge some of the old hands so to speak.

NI4 Game 4

So, I ended up playing a fourth game, but the score would not count towards my total. This was due to the odd number of participants and the issues that occurred at the start of the tournament (I won't go in to them again, I've moaned enough about them!). I'm not sure if this was the best way to make up the games, as I was playing sabotage rather than for points. The game however was really enjoyable.

Deployment

So, I was wondering how to play this game. Aggressive or defensive? I deployed first and went for a usual set-up, however I decided to push the wyverns up in to one of the ruins for some cover, try and keep them away from the big scary beasts. I had nothing but the flyers and their squads in reserve.

The forces of the imperium.

My opposition flooded his side of the table with models. 2 large broods of Gargoyles and to large groups of Gaunts on opposite sides of the table, 4 flyers, 2 flying Hive Tyrants and 2 Crones started on the table. Rounding everything off were a couple of Tyranid Warrior broods. Oh, and a couple of Zoanthropes and some spore mine things in reserve.

A very scary nids deployment.

If you can't be seen, to can't be hit. Hiding in the ruins

Turn 1

I knew that his flyers were going to be on me in no time at all, but I didn't really have anything for dealing with them apart from the autocannons and they didn't have line of sight. So my main target was either one of the Gaunts or the Gargoyles. I went for the Gargoyles as I thought that they were the greater threat, mainly due to their speed. I fired the Wyverns at the squad and with all the re-rolls managed to eliminate a whole unit, earning first blood in the process. Only 26 points left available! I took a couple of pot shots at some Warriors, but did little.

First blood!

My opponent replied in brutal fashion, with his flyers moving right up and taking on my Wyverns ! After a lot of shooting, including two template haywire shots! But my Wyverns went pop, not a good start. In the rest of the shooting, a number of guardsmen got hit, but the majority of the fire-power went on the Wyverns. Everything else ran to get in range.
 

Oh crap!

Wyverns about to die.

The hoard approaches, Crone to the front, Gaunts in the centre and Warriors to the rear!

Turn 2

With the flyers right on my doorstep and both my Wyverns down and out, things were looking pretty dire. The only bit of luck was managing to ground one of the crones, which was then dispatched with massed lass fire!

Now you see it (bottom left)

Now you don't! 1 down 3 to go!

The rest of the units did little. The centre held the line but the PCS ran for the ruins at the top of the table. The newly arrived Valkyrie targeted one unit of Gaunts, killing a number, but not wiping them out.

My opposition continued his advance. Pretty much everything but the flyers and the Warriors ran forward. The flyers went to work on the troops, removing a number of the guardsmen, as did the Warriors, even though they only had one shot, a blast, in range.

Moving in for the kill.

At this point in the game, the points were pretty even, with me on two and my opposition on just one, but things still had a long way to go. I was now playing to deny and not really for points.

End of turn 2. A lack of guardsmen in the centre

Turn 3

Its hard to see, but if you look through the window on the left, you can just see a Gaunts head peaking around the corner of the building in the middle of the table. (Trust me its there!)

For the first time in all the battles, my Promethium Relay Pipe come in to there own. The unit of Gaunts moving towards the centre objective get the full force of thee torrent flamers and a bunch of lasguns, killing all but one Gaunt! On the left side, the flamers and lasgun fire take the other Gaunts down to half strength. I also take a chance this turn, and decide to Grav-Chute insert my vet squad, something I generally don't like doing, and for good reason, when 2 of my squad manage to splat themselves all over a building. The rest run in to the cover of said building, with the intention of going for both line breaker and his objective.

One gaunt, holding the objective. 

My opponent continued attacking with the flyers. One moved in to glide to keep firing at the guardsmen, the other swung around going for new targets. The left Gaunts recover and move up, but not in to the building, keeping out of flamer range. The Warriors start there moves forward as well. By this point, I'm starting to run out of units, but I've not given up many points at this point.

The onslaught continues!

End of turn 3, and the grunts on both sides have been feeling the pain!

Turn 4

As there is little I can really do to all the flying beasts, I decide to move. My left squad moves towards the objective, removing some more Gaunts in the process, with the flamers hanging back to keep the torrent rule. On the right hand side, the PCS move up and issue an order to themselves, to fire and move, flaming the Gargoyles on that side. As a result of 4 flamers, the squad is removed, clearing the way for the PCS to take the objective. In another point saving move, the two psykers break form the centre squads and move off with the left squad, running away from the flyers in the centre. The Vendetta went in to hover and dropped of the plasma command squad, with a lot more accuracy than the last drop! I did put the Vendetta in a dangerous position. The squad didn't fire though as they charged in to the two units, the last Gaunt and the Zoanthrope, both of which were on the objective.

Advance!

The table at the top of turn 4.

Moving for the objective.

Combat.

My opposition continued his relentless assault on my squads, killing off the command squad and killing my warlord and more importantly earning himself a number of points. Unfortunately, my gamble didn't pay off and my vendetta was brought down. The combat in the centre continued with nothing happening, which was not good for my part, as I wanted to break out to be able to fire in my turn.

End of turn 4

Turn 5

By the beginning of turn 5 it was pretty clear that I had managed to complete my objective of reducing the points my opposition was getting. I had sacrificed a few units, but that had been necessary.

For my turn I just moved to secure the objective, the PCS on the right, the Blob on the left and the vets ran for my oppositions objective, while the remnants of the centre blob held mine. The centre objective was still contested at this point, but I managed to destroy the Zoanthrope during the assault phase.

My opposition did his bit and went for kill points, taking down the now hovering Valkyrie and also opening up on the plasma command squad in the centre with his Warriors, as a result the command squad was down to the commander on 1 wound. The flyers also eliminated the last of the centre blob squad, which was taken with one of the swooping flyers. There was not much else that happened as it was clear that my opposition was not able to gain the number of points needed to win the tournament.

End game, apart from the squad at the bottom is dead.

At the end of the game, the score were, 10 to me, First Blood, Line breaker, 4 for objectives and 4 kill points, and my opposition had 12, Line breaker, Slay the Warlord, 7 kill points and 3 objectives. While this was a loss, my only one of the tournament, it was in fact a successful game, I gave away only 12 points, short of the 21 my opposition needed to win. In many respects, this game wound have ended differently had we both been playing for points. At the start of the game I was on 25 and my opponent was on 23. This would have put us on 35 a piece, and drawing. What would have happen, I don't know, but it would have gone on to tertiary points (Warlord, first blood and line breaker) and i might have still been able to win. However, if we had of been playing for points, i might have played differently, keeping both flyers in zooming and gone for the last of the Gaunts for more points. We also made a few mistakes at the end, with the plasma command squad commander surviving a strength 6 hit which should have killed him outright, giving a kill point and also enabling him to take the centre objective. This would have put his score to 15 and potentially winning the tournament. Its all academic though, as my points were already decided.

End game - loss - 10 (FB, LB, 4obj, 4 kp) - 12 (LB, StW, 7kp, 3obj)

Tyranids Vs Hjaltland 1000pts

This is the third of the battles that I fought in the last few weeks. This was between the Nids and Hjaltland LI again, although this time I was facing a different player and a very different Nids list. I was expecting this to be a hard fought battle but it didn't work out that way in the end, but I'll go in to that later.

The armies were 1027 points of Nids, consisting of several groups of Termagaunts and Hormagaunts, a Genestealer brood and a Lictor and I think 2 groups of Tyrinid warriors, but not 100% certain.

The Hjaltland LI, consisted of 1033 points, (yes I could have dropped a flamer or grenade launcher and hit 1027, but I didn't think about this until after) including, a command squad, 2 platoons of 3 squads apiece, my wyverns, and a couple of psykers, priests and commissars.

We played the Mealstrom game 4, I cant remember which one it is, but its the one where you can steal each others cards. I like this game as it can be helpful when you pull out your cards and think, "bullocks, can do any of them". Obviously this doesn't help when you opponent had completed all his cards already!

On a side note, we didn't do warlords, as my opposition was using a borrowed army without a codex, using battlescribe.


Turn one

For my cards I drew 12/24/52  (fix bayonets, obj 4, blood and guts). I knew that all of these cards were out of reach for my first turn, so I prettymuch ignored them. With most of the nids hidden I stayed where I was, only moving up on the right to engage the unit of gaunts there. The main player for this and many other turns though was the wyverns. They managed to destroy a unit of gaunts outright for first blood.
So at the end of my turturnscored a point for first blood and Discarded 52 (blood and guts )

My opponent drew  cards - 16/51/64 (obj 6, overwhelming firepower, assassinate). Again, not a great set of cards, especially for a combat orientated army. However, he managed to steal one of my objectives for a point.
So after turn one my opponent scored - 24 (stole obj 4) and discarded 64 (assassinate )

It occurs to me now that I might have been playing things slightly wrong, with discarding cards. Do you do it at the end of your turn or at the beginning of the next just before you draw new cards. Think its supposed to be the latter and not the former as I've been playing.

Just before the wyverns opened up, already the unit on the right is down to just 2 models and a center unit is decimated but its the Grey unit hiding behind the building that's about to bare the brunt of the stormshard mortars.

On turn 2 I drew some new cards, giving me - 12/13/34 (fix bayonets, strength in unity, obj 4). Again not great, but there was some points to be had. My turn was pretty simple again, hold on the left and push up on the right. This resulted in destroying the remnants of two gaunt squads, the one on the right with 2 models in, the last of the center units and a small squad to stealers leaving only one squad of gaunts hiding behind a building in the top left of the board. I managed to steal a card off my opposition and score an AM objective for 2 points - 16/13 (stole 16 - obj 6, strength in unity) and I discarded 12 (fix bayonets )

My opponent drew new card for turn 2 as well, ending up with cards - 12/22/51 (obj 2, obj 2, overwhelming firepower). If he could grab objective 2 in the center of the board he could get double points and seeing as he was already camped on objective 4, had the option to steal that as well. As it was he managed to get half his units in from reserve. One of the units came in dead on target the other scattered a little, unfortunately it was the unit going for objective 2 that scattered, lucky only by 4 inches, so it could still claim it when all the models were rather tactfully placed! These new units managed to wipe out 8 guardsmen in one squad, but it was starting to look like too little too late, even at this stage! At the end of the turn though he scored  - 12/22/34 (obj 2, obj 2, stole 34 - obj 4) for 3 points.

The horde moves up

A lack of targets, good job the wyvern can rain death anywhere it likes!

Some nid reserves! 

Just before the nids open up, the squad in the open in the middle are just about to take a whole lot of pain!

Turn 3 and my new cards - 15/23/25 (overwhelming number, obj 3, obj 5). This time I was confident that I could get all these cards done. The blob squad on the right flank did alittle bit of a conga line to get in range of the enemy and stay on an objective. Easy when you've got a lot of guardsmen to spare. Most of the nid reserves were removed this turn, leaving very little on the board. At 5he end ofmy turn I scored - 15/23/25 (overwhelming number, obj 3, obj 5)

mY opponents turn started with the arrival of the last of his reserves and the unavailing of his new cards - 42/51/53 (behind enemy lines, overwhelming firepower, no prisoners), all of which were achievable thanks the the deep striking units and the meager remains of one squad. The squad in question was dispatched with ease by the newly arrived units, but not a lot else happened. with only 4 units for a total of 12 models, half of which were spore mines, there was little else he could achieve. Anyway he scored 42/51/53 (behind enemy lines, overwhelming firepower, no prisoners)

They survived turn 2, but there's only so much 2 guardsmen can do!

The conga line for the objective on the right.

Turn 4 and things were starting to look perilous for the nids. my cards this turn were - 16/44/56 (storm of fire, ascendency, harness the warp) and all were achievable this turn without much effort. Most of the effort went in to securing points by running units to ensure I claimed enough objectives and all the psykic dice went in to one roll to ensure success. As a result only just 2 of the units were removed from the enemy, all those with shooting abilities as it happened. As a result I scored - 16/44(2)/56 (storm of fire, ascendency for 2, harness the warp)

At The end of the top of turn 4 and the nids are suffering.

My opponents cards - 31/35/52  (obj 1, obj 5, blood and guts), did him few faviours this turn. If I remember correctly I had both of the objectives, but even if I hadn't I think the closest was still over 15 inches away. So he did what he could and went for the only card that he had a chance of getting, blood and guts. As a result he charged one ofmy squads, loosing one creature to the wall of death from 2 flamers, and then failing to do enough damage to the squad. The fact that there was a priest in the mix helped a lot, and I managed to get a wound back as well. So at the end he scored no points this round.

The nids falorne hope!

End game

At this point we were running out of time and when I turned over my new cards I could achieve all of them, I cant remember what the cards were as I did not record them, and even with discarding a card and drawing a new one, it was going to be impossible for my opposition to score the required points to win or even draw, so we called it there. As it stood we both had line breaker, and points wise it was standing at 11 to 7 in my faviour. Another turn and the gap would have spread further, possibly in to a tabling. 

Whilst this game wasa resounding victory for the imperium, I was surprised at how squishy the bugs were. I have always faced big stuff when playing nids and I realise why now, the basic troops and stuff are very very squishy. With poor saves and love T values there easy to remove, even for lowly guardsmen, where as the big stuff is almost impossible. Ill still take the win though!