Terrain is everything – Hail the Omnissiah a new STC is found!

Techno-archaeologist Avro Vulcan continues his research in the Ferron Proxima badlands. It has been months since he revealed a newly discovered Standard Template Construct (STC) to Tech Adepts at the Adeptus Mechnicus Oversight Cohort on Ferron Proxima. This does not mean he has been unsuccessful in his discoveries, in fact the opposite is true, his very success has been his undoing by malicious data attacks by the group known only as the Free Radical Collective!

The Free Radical Collective have been targetting Avro Vulcan’s data banks and releasing his discoveries prior to aproval by AdMech Overseers. Th people of Ferron Proxima have seen benefits from this, technologically speaking but wanton disregard for testing procedures and the free distribution of advanced technology has caused the Adeptus Mechanicus to bring in a specialised unit of Tech Inquisitors to discover the true identities of the FRC.

Meanwhile Avro Vulcan brings us another innocuous, but perhaps revolutionary STC, the Standard Manifold Coupling, aka the Modular Plug Socket. The details of this coupling has been kept secret by Vulcan due to the interest from data-hackers who have sort to gain control of this valuable information to share outside Adeptus Mechanicus control. Once private enterprise can access this information they will utilise it to gain control of all Mercury Plateaus suitable for Plasma Generators, thus reducing their need to pay tithes to the Ad-Mech administration. The Modular Plug Socket is more than just a connector for Plasma Generators, it also functions as an underground storage portal, watch tower base, heavy weapons turret mount and lift shaft. In time these STCs will also be shared with the world.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B97Rk-BalgZbUm1VQ3hKNF8xNDQ

This STC will be uploaded to the full Ferron Proxima STC library shortly. You can access the database here:

http://40kaddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/terrain-is-everything-standard-template.html

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Winners

So that was pretty much everything that was ‘time sensitive from Throne of Skulls. All the other pics can be lotted in amongst any other content I’m doing to go back to my every other day selctions of tutorials, freebies, fluff and commentary. The last bit that needds to be done before everyone forgest is just a gallery of winners, just in case one of them ever stumbles on the blog. You’ll notice that every Codex had a winner as well as the overall winner and plenty of other prizes were up for grabs which was cool because at least there’s a slim chance you could go home with something.

Otty collecting his prize.

I’m the one in the centre looking like a Chav in red jumper and baseball cap.

I was a bit giddy and excited when they asked us to strike a pose, hence why I now have my arm obscuring the nominee next to me [knowing my luck that’ll be Eddie Eccles, who was also nominated]

they asked me to leave 😉

but not before they gave me this!

And all the rest of the awards…



Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Conclusion

So that was it, my five games and a whole lot of fun. I was quite surprised at my success. I think this was more in part to the missions available. I’m not kidding myself that killing wise my army didn’t quite destroy what was set against me but I heard quite often over the weekend “a win is a win”. However I’m not going to kid myself that I’m all conquering, but the last time I was at Warhammer World and in other battles there were instances of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I’m pretty sure the same situations could have arisen here, except my plans worked and the other opponents weren’t able to capitalise on any of my mistakes or force me to play their game.

Luck – well I don’t believe in it as a driving force of a game but there are certainly the law of averages and I think overall there weren’t any extremes. But lets look at some of my units and how they fared:

Tyranid Prime and Warriors
Well, they didn’t make MVP – a lot of points for little return. Even when they got to assault in Game 4 it took a while for these beasts to take out a Tactical Squad. There’s something about this Prime that even with 5 attacks on the charge he fails to make that Bonesword count, even with WS5 and S5. he should decimate a squad of Marines but usually it’s the Warriors that do more damage! But, they add the synapse in and they do attract a little fire and can be durable in some instances. The Barbed Strangler was a waste though, it never hit anyone, let alone kill if I recall,  so I may consider binning it off and replacing with another Deathspitter seeing as the model is painted.

Tervigon
Oh wow, these were brutal in places. They could kill in assault and took so much fire that could be dismissed through Iron Arm or recovered from with Endurance [although I must concede I played this wrong a couple of times]. Sure an army of five would be insane but I think two is my limit

Termagants
I spawned OK, never ran out of gaunts, with around 60 in my box. They did what needed to be done in places.

Devgaunts
Slightly better than their vanilla variants. Their impressive weight of fire is always good against the likes of Terminators as we don’t have anything that can crack their normal 2+ save anyway so why not hit them with 30 shots just to see 1 or 2 not stand up after the fusillade!

Hormagaunts
Nothing spectacular again but I was specifically playing them as front runners to draw fire and allow the Stealers to survive an assault. Changing to this plan of usage means they did their job admirably. I still think some Gargoyles may have been an alternative but given I hate moving and storing the figures and the Hormies are easier then I’ll stick with these for a bit.

Broodlord and min Genestealer Brood
Potential MVPs? I thought they’d be so weak and be First Blood every game but the stealers make excellent sacrifices for the Broodlord and also helped me adopt a fast rolling system for ‘Look out Sir!’ The psychic abilities were a huge bonus and taking into account game one where I kept the Toxin Stealer with Codex powers I think I managed to roll usable, non witchfire, powers 15 out of 18 times! I still believe there should be a reroll available but at least it wasn’t too big an issue and quite often they were my last chances at getting an Endurance.

Hive Guard
Although the Hive Guard were a bit hit and miss throughout it seemed that when they did hit there were a number of dramatic results, with at least two or three explosions and they were game changers, particularly Game 4 and the Vendetta ‘endzone rush’.

Doom of Malan’tai in Mycetic Spore
Game 1 was appalling, Game 2 was obscenely good, the remaining games he was a major threat and took a lot of fire and forced my opponents to deal with him instead of the rest of my force. Reacting to him allowed me more freedom to manoeuvre and concentrate on the missions while they concentrated on the Doom sucking life in their deployment zone. And, he didn’t always die in the following turn he arrived so it was another good choice, he certainly deserved his place in the army. My only reservation was did I use him incorrectly in game two? Did I mistakenly take wounds back from killing the Land Speeders? I honestly can’t recall, the picture would suggest I did but hopefully I didn’t. I’m pretty certain if I did I didn’t make the same mistake again and even so the outcome of Game 2 would have been no different because of it.

Trygon
Oh dear, what did you do? I think it may have killed a couple of things but overall it was 200pts that may well have been wasted. Perhaps it took fire which allowed the Tervigon’s to shine but you add it to the under performing Warriors and Prime and quite often I was only playing with an 1100pt army and still managing to win! OK, that’s a bit harsh it came through in the final game and thanks to being scoring did wipe out an entire unit of Immortals, the Warlord HQ and capture an objective, just in time to save it’s blushes.

Aegis Defence Line
Did you save lives? Some, but never enough to recoup the cost. Did you change the game? Definitely, and enough to win me games I believe. Game 3 in particular is where it came into it’s own. I don’t know whether it was fear of being immobilised or capitalising on the cover saves but the Defence Line seemed a psychological barrier Phil was unwilling to cross. I’m pretty sure this was only the tip of the iceberg for it’s defensive capabilities as quite often there was never the ‘all out assault’ on my objectives it was guarding but I’ll be using it again so we will hopefully see how good it can be.

Biomancy
OK so I did fluff this one thanks to my misinterpretation of Endurance and the ‘It Will Not Die’ rule. I could really have done without mucking this up as I hate making mistakes and this is casting a shadow over the weekend. Even so the rule is good and I think I’d still rather gamble on Endurance than guarantee Feel No Pain with Catalyst. The fact is when you roll your Biomancy powers it then allows you to slot in roles for each psyker, where they’re going to go and what they’re going to do. Iron Arm making a Tervigon T9 is insane or Warp Speed and Crushing Claws giving a maximum of 9 S10 Smash hits! No wonder my Trygon looked tame… Unfortunately the likes of Haemorrhage and Leech life were a bit useless due to not getting into range or victims being inside vehicles but the Blessings and the inability for your opponent to Deny them is a blessing in itself. I’ve had a look at the other psychic options and I don’t believe there’s anything in Telekinesis or Telepathy I’d actually want to use and in fact thanks to the greater Warp Charge required there are less options and more chances of Witchfire powers a Broodlord can’t use than sticking with Biomancy.

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Battle 5, Tyranids Vs Necrons

Fifth game was Big Guns Never Tire [5 objectives], Dawn of War deployment on table 45 again. My Warlord Trait was Furious Charge in my opponents DZ.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ Tervigon Troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Iron Arm Life Leech Endurance Iron Arm Haemorrhage Haemorrhage Haemorrhage Warp Speed

Sean O’Sullivan was the last battle with his ‘fluffy’ Necron list based around Nemesor Zahndrekh. There were 5 objectives and with hindsight I realise my positioning the third one also behind my ADL was a tad unfair. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d put it in the middle of the board but it’s too late now. His objectives are in the two ruins in the top corner. I position my HQ and Trygon behind the ruins to take cover with the Hiveguard out of sight. My Hormagaunts are out of shot on the far left ready to run through the woods.

Suddenly I begin to see that despite Sean being a little worse for wear from partaking of Bugman’s brew last night he still has a handle on his army and knows how to use it. The Triarch Stalker lights up my Hormagaunts with his heat ray and then lets rip with everything.

Thanks to the re-rolls to hit they’re wiped out first turn earning him First Blood!

The Troop Tervigon spawns 10 Termagants to hold this objective. Toxin Broodlord gets Iron Arm +1 [?] and I’m not sure what else happened this turn, not much I think, I may have forgotten to shoot the Hive Guard as they were tucked away and was hoping that everything was going to move forwards before I leapt over the Aegis Defence Line and brought the pain to him.

Not sure what Sean did in his turn two but in mine the Doom arrived [reserves are so much better in 6th 🙂 ] slap bang between 3 units. However, I think he only managed to take down a few Immortals in the top ruins.

The front triarch Stalker goes BOOM! I think from Hive Guard, I remembered to fire them this turn. Suddenly Sean’s lost a lot of support in the centre of his army and there’s a life sucking brain beast rampaging his backfield. 

The Trygon, confident with Endurance, breaks through the ruins and heads for open ground and take the fight to the Necrons.

Sean’s Night Scythe arrives and deposits Immortals in the centre of the board. Personally I would have tried to get them in my backfield but maybe that wasn’t possible. his other Night Scythe flies in too and he shoots up my troops behind the Defence Line making some kills. Some of my Warriors may have fired off a couple of Snap Shots on the Night Scythe that was in range it may have taken a glancing hit or two prompting it to fly off the board next turn.

With the Doom threatening his back field he repositions troops so they won’t be leeched and the C’Tan Shard heads back to lay waste to the Doom, once again helped by it being lit up by the remaining Triarch Stalker. They also destroy the Spore Pod in the process.

The Broodlord has suffered 2 wounds but now the three other stealers have died his +3T comes into play on 50% rules and the Immortals fail to do any more damage to his armored hide.

The Stealers move aside to allow the Tervigon to take their place and provide a more pressing target priority. Termagants, Devgaunts and Warriors reposition to get in shooting range and again make more tempting targets than loss the Broodlord and his psychic abilities.

The Trygon shoots killing a couple of Necrons and then assaults the Immortals protecting Sean’s second objective. He manages to kill four or five in combat… 

… but reanimation protocols are super efficient this turn and most if the unit reanimates leaving 8 immortals still in combat as well and Nemesor!

The Trygon gets stuck in again and manages to break the unit and overrun them. He gains Slay the Warlord and consolidates onto Sean’s second objective and capture it thanks to it being Big Guns Never Tire and becoming a scoring unit.

At this stage Sean sees that this may well have broken his army and he doesn’t really have enough left to win so he suggests we call it there, which I agree to given I know how long it’s going to take me to put my stuff away and actually the 45 minutes wasn’t enough!

So despite the initial loss of First Blood the final score was 13VPs to 4VPs. Like I said perhaps if I’d positioned the 5th onjective in the centre it may have made it farer but aside from the three units of Immortals the Stalkers and Spyder were his only scoring units and he didn’t push them forward enough to contest the onjectives. maybe this was thankss again to the Doom wreaking havoc in his Deployment Zone. Forget how effective he is, it’s the fear of how effective he can be that is game changing. Nearly everything started to look backwards when he arrived and aside from the Night Scythes nothing got out of his table half with only the Immortals eaten by the Trygon and Immortals deposited by the Night Scythe egtting out of the Deployment Zone. Once again I wonder if the view of all my troops massed behind the Defence Line which was protecting the Objective proved psychologically a barrier to big to breach?

Anyway Sean was a great sport about it all and despite everything said it was a good game. So that’s it, I’ve an epilogue tomorrow and then the awards pics and then to showcase all the armies I photograhed, new displays in the Warhammer World galleery and whatever other pics I took. Hope you enjoyed the battle.

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Battle 4, Tyranids Vs Imperial Guard [squats] pt2

Happy Bonfire Night.

OMG! [and you know I use that rarely] I had absolutely no idea they were Squats. Look at these Veterans. Until this point I’d just been looking at the simple and clean painted tanks and Flyers but as the Veterans disembark from the Vendettas I see the awesome conversion work. Standard Cadians, with the legs cut off with some green stuff trousers and all the beards green stuffed on.

I suddenly started snapping like a fiend because each figure has so much character, although I couldn’t help but think of Tom and Jerry’s Uncle Pecos:

Anyway, moving on more of the Plasma Gun Vets.

The HWT in the ruin with his objective.

Check out the fantastic beard on this guy!

And the spotter on this HWT.

Not to mention the Trollslayer Warlord hiding in the shadows!

Hopefully you can appreciate how cool these look. I absolutely loved them,

Meanwhile war continues to rage. Those ever so cute and cool Veteran Plasma guns and Vendettas manage to wipe out the HQ Tervigon and as it implodes it kills 8 vanilla gaunts it previously spawned. 

The Troop tervigon also takes 4 wounds from Plasma but 2 vets die thanks to overheats. Damn the fact the Broodlord can’t quite see it to ‘endure’.

Here was a stupid mistake I enfeebled the flamer squad and shot and charged it with the Termagants and Tervigon. Andreas didn’t overwatch which made me curious, I thought it was because he wanted the unit to die leaving me back in the open and ripe for killing but it turns out it was because he thought the Stealers were going to attack and he was going to overwatch them. Instead they go for the other Chimaera and destroy it, the explosion taking out a lot of the Vets inside. Doom heads for the building to Leech if possible and deny objective. The nearest Vendetta gets immobilized by the Hive Guard. 

Over on the far side the Termagants are down to 2 from 13 and assault the HWT. Hormagaunts down to 8 – they move to capture the objective.

Both remaining Deathstrikes fuel up and fire. The first one hits my ADL and takes out 2 warriors and a handful of gaunts. 

The second one deviates but the blast is large enough to take out a couple more Termagants.

The Doom moves to Leech the HWT, while one Broodlord goes to capture the objective since the Hormagaunts have been wiped out by the Bolters in the Deathstrike Launchers and the other HWTs. Oh yeah, I have a Trygon, he’s just spent the entire game running… The Immobilsed Vendetta gets whacked by the Stealers.

The Troop Tervigon is still battling away at the Veterans although the Termnagants have snuffed it. Meanhwhile I realise my mistake with the other unit of Plasma Vets. They get in the undamaged Vendetta which blasts up the field heading for my objective.

The Hive Guard see the Vendetta fly past and fire making a glance and a pen. I roll to damage and get a 6 and it blows up killing most of the occupants. Andreas hopes to save it with a Jink roll but I actually feel bad pointing out how the FAQ denies this thanks to the unique Impaler Cannon rules. His last chance blown out of the sky – the Hive Guard can do something afterall.

With the end of turn five my remaining Termagants secure my objective and I win 5 VPs to 4 thanks to Linebreaker and First Blood.

Three wins now and I’m stunned. The Biomancy is still kicking it but I can’t believe how large portions of my army aren’t even involved in the battle and I’m still coming out on top. The Trygon didn’t seem to do anything. The Tyranid Warriors were out of range for the entire game 400 pts, over a quarter of my army was non combatant. The mistake that nearly cost me the game charging just one out of the two units. If I’d have charged both he wouldn’t have been able to get any troops back field as they’d have been tied up for a turn at least. Even when the Termagants died there was the remaining stealers to tie them back up.

And, for all the flak I’ve given the Hive Guard they really did pull it out of the bag this game. They’ve done that crack shot a couple of times now when it counted so perhaps I need to give them a break and celebrate their success a little more. Another success is my min Stealer squads. Have I lost a Broodlord yet? I dunno but their psychic powers have come in useful and I’m so glad I went with them. On to game 5 and it’s back to table 45!

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Battle 4, Tyranids Vs Imperial Guard [squats] pt1

Day two and the fourth game was Emperors Will [2 objectives], Hammer & Anvil deployment. I’m not sure what my Warlord Trait was, so I’m guessing it was Co-ordinated Assault, +1″ to charge range again or Furious Charge in opponents DZ as those are the only other traits I recorded.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ Tervigon Troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Enfeeble Enfeeble Enfeeble Warp Speed Iron Arm Iron Arm NA Life Leech Iron Arm

Andreas Kkounnous was my opponent with his Imperial Guard – mostly Veterans, Heavy Weapons Teams [HWT], Vendettas and three Deathstrike Missile Launchers! Yeah three! He admitted when it goes right it’s devastating but when it doesn’t… Anyway I set up my ring defence again because of the Vendettas with my one objective inside. Once again I was going to use the Warriors to defend but this time the Devgaunts were to go forwards and hopefully their weight of shots would remove the HWT surrounding his objective which set his up on the roof of his building in his DZ. I also took a gamble Infiltrating both Stealer squads behind the ruin in the centre, hoping they wouldn’t be visible to enemy fire. Everything else was positioned to try and take LOS blocking or cover from the central ruin or the forests.

Oh, if that Deathstrike could work first turn!

Andreas fired with the HWTs at the HQ Tervigon.

and put 3 Wounds on it.

Troop Tervigon spawns 11 gaunts into the ADL to defend with Warriors and poops out. It’s funny how I adopted this tactic repeatedly without ever considering that’s what I would do with the ADL but it was working. Tervigons Iron Armed or Warp Speeded. HQ Tervigon spawns 13 to help support the Devgaunts who move and run forwards. Hormagaunts and Hive Guard advance with the latter looking to get into range of something.

Stealers move through the central ruin. They may have been Endured and Iron Armed, although I think I recall failing a roll. 

The Vendettas arrive and one Deathstrike fuels up…

…fires and deviates wildly missing the rearguard in the ADL.

The Doom arrives, his spore pod hitting directly between the two Chimaeras so moving back behind them to give a 1″ gap. Spore Pod and Hive Guard destroy the nearest tank giving me First Blood. Doom remains on 4 wounds as HWT in building pass Leadership and the now exposed HWT from the tank can’t be leeched since the start of the phase has passed. Choose not to Cataclysm due to range, perhaps he should have charged the HWT?

Toxin Stealers sacrifice themselves to get the Broodlord into combat with the Chimaera. Termagants swarm forwards.

Another 13 spawned by the HQ Tervigon on the other side of the ruin by the Adrenal Stealers. Both Tervigons Iron Arm +1.

HWT by the Doom move out of leech range.

8 Termagants move to support rearguard, not sure where they came from, HQ probably during the second turn.

So, part 2 tomorrow and was I in for a big surprise because my whole perception of this Imperial Guard army is about to be turned on it’s head, ‘get ready for a big surprise’!

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Battle 3, Tyranids Vs Blood Angels pt 2.

So the Doom’s gone, however my HQ Tervigon arrives, but can’t spawn or use psychic powers due to it just arriving and spawning and psychic takes place at the beginning of the movement phase. The remaining Warriors try to take down the Baal Predator with shooting and assault but whiff.

Phil’s tanks shuffle around a bit but the Land raider makes a break for my left flank and the second 3VP objective. The Baal in my DZ repositions to get the Warriors. 

His shooting takes out the Tervigon and Mycetic Spore and I lose Linebreaker. At this stage I’ve realised that the piecemeal arrival of my force created perfect portions sizes for him to tackle and I’m running out of options. I have a Stealer unit closing on the Baal in my DZ and the Adrenal Stealers, my last unit still to arrive and if they come in on the right flank…

So here come the Toxin Stealers, not sure what they’ve been doing, getting shot up a bit by the looks of it as the Broodlord has taken 2 wounds. 

The Adrenal Stealers arrive and I roll a 4 getting the board edge I wanted. They move on 6″ and I hope they can survive long enough for the Broodlord to cast Iron Arm on himself and hopefully toughen up enough to claim/contest the 4VP objective denying it from Phil. A slim chance but one I actually planned because I needed that Iron Arm to make it feasible.

Hq Tervigon spawns gaunts onto the nearest 3VP objective. Then the +3 Warp Speeded Broodlord and Tervigon maul the Baal and deny Linebreaker. 

The Broodlord pens tank but not enough for it to blow.

The Land Raider becomes only the second tank to brave crossing the ADL and disgorges five Assault Marines and his Librarian into the remaining 3 Hormagaunts who’ve been guarding the third objective. The Assault squad do their job and claim the objective and possibly Linebreaker too.

His other Assault squads run to make their objectives but will they make it in time?

The Tervigon spawns another 7 gaunts and they all move so I can target the Assault unit. The other squad of gaunts also moves to get as many in range but still claim their objective, they kill one of the Marines. Meanwhile the stealers position themselves between two objectives hoping to provide support should the Devgaunts or the middle gaunt unit get wiped out.

The Adrenal stealer is the sole surviving unit having sacrificed the rest of the brood to guarantee claiming the objective. Despite +3T he takes a wound but runs 6″ to claim/contest the 4VP objective.

The Hive Guard pass their Instinctive Behaviour test and shoot/assault the Librarian and last remaining assault marine. I can’t recall if they survived or were locked in combat but they were probably pulled off the objective.

The remaining Termagants head for the last free objective.

I think this was the end of turn five and I roll for another turn and the game ends. I’ve it written down as 8-3 I think it was 5VPs from the Devgaunts and Gaunts objectives, 1 from Linebreaker and I also got 2 VPs for killing two Baal Predators which were Fast Attack and part of the Scouring VPs. Phil admitted he let it slip away but I’m just stunned that I won a game by tactics, admittedly tactics that required things to happen at certain times but what I did was exactly what I wanted to do.

Once again the ADL failed to deliver it’s points back in saves and in fact cost me the destruction of one of his vehicles but it made such barrier on the battlefield that Phil camped behind it for most of the game. I’m not sure if that was to take the benefit of the save or for fear of immobilising himself on it but given how fast the tanks initially advanced I couldn’t believe how static they became. Perhaps getting them over it would have offered more opportunities for me to assault but putting those six tanks in my backfield would have got Phil Linebreaker and contested the three objectives I comfortably held. Then it would have been about the three in his DZ, which he had 3VPs I was nowhere near and he had First Blood too. I would have had Linebreaker, the two Baals and contested the 4VP objective so only 3VP. Anyway a thoroughly challening match.

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Battle 3, Tyranids Vs Blood Angels pt1.

Third game was The Scouring [5 objectives], Dawn of War deployment on table 45. My Warlord Trait was Co-ordinated Assault, +1″ to charge range again.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ Tervigon Troop Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Enfeeble Enfeeble Iron Arm Enfeeble Warp Speed Life Leech NA Witchfire Warp Speed

At this stage I was getting a bit frustrated I could never sort these psychic powers out before the 2hr30min game time had begun. Quite often it was 15 minutes before the first turn even started. Saying that in all the games I played it never went to the time limit so despite taking 5 hours for most games at home these were flowing really fast. Anyway by now I knew what sort of Biomancy mix I was after and that lack of Endurance and abundance of Enfeeble wasn’t going to help me much with the list I was facing…

Phil Ellitott from the bright orange T-shirt wearing www.4tk.co.uk team that was pretty much everywhere at Warhammer Warlord brought:

• Librarian
• 5 assault marines, meltagun, heavy bolter razorback
• 5 assault marines, meltagun, heavy bolter razorback
• 5 assault marines, meltagun, heavy bolter razorback
• 5 assault marines, meltagun, land raider
• Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon
• Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon
• Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon
• Predator, Autocannon, sponson heavy bolters
• Predator, Autocannon, sponson lascannons
• Whirlwind

which I know courtesy of Admetus over on Bolter and Chainsword who also fought Phil, and Jim Klapkowski’s Ravenguard and Liam’s Eldar so go check out his battle reports too. Did you notice that’s 10 tanks! Yep 10 tanks and I hate tanks! I may have a sensible but currently unproven fear of flyers but mech has always been a horror for me and if you remember the last time I faced Blood Angels that didn’t end well.
We randomly placed the six numbered objectives [I’ll be putting those online soon] and I narrowly gained and advantage by 1VP. Phil got the 4, 2 and 1VP objectives and I got two 3’s and a 2VP. I positioned the ADL as you see against the ruin for extra defence and with hindsight should have gone onto the crest of the hill for extra cove instead of below it but nevermind. My three objectives were lined up behind and Phil positioned his diagonally opposite with the four in the far right corner.

My only real plan was to do what I was forced to do last time I fought Blood Angels, essentially the original Dawn of War rules. Reserve half may army, that way they could potentially survive longer and allow me have them in place in turn 5 to secure the objective. Of course that totally failed last time the fact I would only have half my army on the board meaning less target priority for the Blood Angels and more opportunity to concentrate fire seemed to escape me. Still the monsters took cover behind the ruins and the Devgaunts well out of Synapse on the right were hidden behind the ADL and crest of the hill.

The Blood Angel centre ‘castled’ up I believe it’s called.

Meanwhile two Baal Predator’s prepared to flank me…

…with a scouting move!!! So I was already being outplayed, lets hope I could survive.

The centre advanced and I was really in it and about to be swamped by tanks. They targeted the Troop Tervigon and managed to put 3 wounds on her.

My turn and I moved the Trygon and Hive Guard up, the Tervigon retreated to gain more cover. I think I made another mistake here forgetting to spawn. The Hive Guard tried to secure First Blood and fired at the Razorback behind the ruined arch in his DZ. 2 hits, one of which penned and immobilized the transport but no FB.

His tanks fire on the Devgaunts for FB, I lost five and then thought too late to go to ground. The next lot of firing and they dropped only losing two. I roll for morale thanks to lack of synapse and they get snake eyes – these gaunts know their task. The tanks then turn their attentions on the Troop Tervigon and manage to kill it without a single spawn and gain First Blood.

My turn and the Hormagaunts, Warriors and Doom come on. Warriors target the nearest Predator and do some damage, shaking or stunning it but thanks to being behind the ADL uses my cover against me and manages to shrug off being wrecked otherwise.

The Doom can’t suck life out of anything while they’re in the tanks but the already damaged razorback is wrecked thanks to the Hive Guard or Spore Pod. I think better of firing Cataclysm given the failure in previous games and how close the marines are. It’d be just my luck if it deviated on top of me. The Trygon takes a wound, probably from the Predator.

Having unloaded some troops in his DZ to secure objectives he moves his rearguard tanks forwards and finally crosses the ADL. 2 Warriors are killed

Being an ex-nid player himself he knows full well the dangers of the Doom and moves his nearest unit out of the 6″ leeching range.

Combined fire of the assault squad and Baal Predator kill the Doom.

In return the enraged Trygon, now at 2 wounds left, charges into the Baal and destroys it and claims linebreaker at the same time.

Part two tomorrow…

Throne of Skulls Oct ’12 – Battle 2, Tyranids Vs Ravenguard pt2

We left it rather dire on the Hormagaunts side of the central woods but here comes the cavalry in it’s Mycetic Spore I remember to roll for the Doom and it arrives, in the Pod, on target, right behind his bike squad straddling his DZ. The Doom pops out and in my shooting phase Jim rolls this on his Leadership! Could it get much worse? 8 wounds with no save – taking out the support bike and 6 other bikes leaving two who stoically stay on target.

The Doom, engorged with 10 wounds and strength turns it’s gaze on the Land Speeders and blasts them with Cataclysm causing 3 damage instantly. One crashes outright and another takes a hull point. He receives another 3 wounds back covering any lost in casting the spell.

The Adrenal Stealers had advanced from the forest and together with the Troop Tervigon pounce on the remaining bikes who are destroyed.

Meanwhile the Librarian is killed by Tyranid shooting[Slay the Warlord] and the tactical Squad is reduced to 6 by the Endured Warriors. 

Tyranid Prime does his usual and kills just one out of five attacks.

Another 8 Termagants are spawned at some point and head for the DZ and left hand objective.

Tervigon HQ advances on Tactical squad two with Endurance and Warp Speed +2 coursing through it’s veins.

Warriors and Termagant kill another two members of the tactical squad in my DZ.

The brood of 7 Termagants head to the ruin objective to free up the Toxin Stealer’s guard duty and allow them to finish the deadlock on the ADL.

Adrenal Stealers move to support the HQ Tervigon. 

Hive Guard advance although I’m sure they’ve shot somethings this game I can’t for the life of me recall what, maybe they were responsible for some of the Tactical squad in my DZ? Or perhaps the Land Speeders as they no longer feature?

Finally the Tactical Squad is overwhelmed and the Warriors consolidate back on the objective.

The Tervigon has suffered a wound, probably from a Sergeant’s Power fist. Warp Speed 1 and a +3 Iron Armed Adrenal Stealer [yep that’s Strength 9 on the charge folks!] barrel in and kill the squad outright.

Not sure what happened to the Storm Talon, if it was popped by the Hive Guard or even from glancing hits from the Fleshborers. I think the back field play by the Termagants was thwarted by the Tactical Squad holding his one objective in the ruins.The Hive Guard may have took out the remaining Land Speeders too. I think the Doom may have been killed at some point but not sure when. End result is 10 VPs to me and 4 VPs for Jim.

I was really amazed by Endurance this game. It totally kept stuff alive for longer that meant they drew fire and allowed the other parts of the army to do their job. I’m disappointed the Warriors took so long to take out a Tactical Squad but what can you say when the Doom was just so lethal. Sure it was thanks to a crappy dice roll on Jim’s part but he totally justified his inclusion in the army list. The ADL again performed as an effective barrier. It’s not stopping flamer fire but it’s a barrier to getting at my objectives and I’m convinced it was another right decision to take it.