Monday 19 November 2012

Playing more 40k!

Having previously suffered at the claws of the Tyraninds on the plains of G'lesent Four The Imperial Guard have mustered in force to Purge The Alien from the world. Can they succeed where others have failed?

Gun line vs Green tide, which will triumph?

What do you get when you combine a beautiful autumn Sunday and a travel card? An impromptu game of 40k of course! Will swung over to pit his Tyranids against my Guard and try out the options for his flying Nids. Whilst I was hoping to try out the guard outside their vehicles to see if it helps increase the units usefulness.

I get the choice of ends and deployment and having learnt my lessons from previous games I knew I'd need first turn so set up my gun line to allow me to target almost any of Will's Monstrous Creatures (MC) with all of it in one turn. Will had a real green wave set up with his Flying Tyrant Shielded by the Bastion (as a side note I never really bother using it as a building to put troops in, just as large lumps of terrain, something to look at in the future I think) but chose to set up his Trygon in the centre (he didn't realise the roll for resrves had cgamged to 3+ or he would have reserved it to pop up in my back lines).

With Will fluffing the Seize roll I opened up with my first turn.

Turn 1: Who gets First Blood?

Will has fallen in love with the biomancy powers so it was with heavy heart that I selected Iron arm for his Tervigon (He had three chances, but he only wanted Iron arm). This meant I had one turn of it being only T6. I managed to stick two wounds on the bad boy and that was all I managed in a whole turn! Will then made it T9 and continued his appalling spawning against me as it produced 7 critters with a double 2 (in this kill points mission you'd think this would be quite the boon for me, read on...). 

First blood goes to Will as once again my Flamer units Chimera takes it to the face from Hive Guard, explodes but only kills one passenger (7/8 4+ saves made me smile). Despite his Tyrant hammering one of my units with his dual twin devourers it's lack of ap left the unit bloody nosed but usable (quite a disappointment for a 270pt investment). 

End of Turn 1: W 2-0 D

Turn 2: Charge of the Fail Brigade

Kill point here I come, wait, what do you mean I rolled to low to reach combat? I only needed a 5!
This turn was epitomised by my units failing to produce any form of effective offensive response to the green tide. First fail came as Marbo's demo charge scattered back on to him killed two Gants and himself despite a 3+ cover save (One Kill point for Will in my turn), followed by my Primaris double 6ing on his test to shoot the Trygon (in my mind, 1 1/2 kill points for Will in my turn). My Vendetta strips three wounds off of the Tyrant (shoo, maybe a change of luck?) the Tyrant passes his swooping test. I then unload everything else I have to try to take out the tyrant on one wound, I don't even need to wound him just force him to hit the ground and take a Str 9 ap 2 hit, I fire 5 Heavy Bolters, 4 Multi lasers, every las weapon in range rapid fires and not a single 6 to hit! I get that real sinking feeling. 

Never mind, I have three units that can charge (the most important of which is my Ogryns who are 7" from a unit of Gants who they can pull out of Synapse! 
Would you shoot before charging or hold back to keep the minimum distance?
I had forgone shooting the Gants with the 15 shots (there were 30 of them in Synapse, my only chance to wipe them out was in combat). What follows is an omnishambles. The Ogryns fail to charge (even on the two dice before I realise it's through terrain), the Melta Vet's fail a 5" charge, forcing me to redirect my Grenade Launcher units charge to take out the 7 Gants spawned by the Tervigon. They lose combat, run and get cut down (2 1/2 kill points to Will in my turn). 

A guy could feel a little insulted that his Warlord was Instant Deathed by an Impact Hit
Will then does what all good friends would do in this situation, no he didn't go easy he hammered me fools! Seriously though he offered to call it as in his turn he killed off my Warlord with his Tyrant (2 more kill points), my Melta unit (yet another kill point) and reduced my Ogryns to one model. I wanted to carry on though as I feel it is important to see how an army copes with going far behind and how much more damage it can do to help me avoid giving up on games that could produce a fun outcome. My only concilation was that the spawned Gants died whan they charged the Plasma unit as their support unit never made it in (first kill point!), though I lost the Flamer unit to the Trygon so not the best trade.

End of turn 2: W 8 - 1 D

Turn 3: To kill a Monstrous Creature


Where did all the Guard go? Belly of the Trygon!
Turn 3 brought with it the end of the Tyrant! that's right folks I tripled my Kill points total in one set of shots from the Vendetta. Will was rather unlucky that the Tyrant was left unengaged when only one Ogryn survived the combat allowing the Vendetta to pick it off. This would be the only real joy I get out of this turn as my Primaris kills himself on his test to shoot the Trygon (double 1, 11 shots, 10 hits only 4 wounds), plasma unit joined in but despite two hits from the Plasma guns two failed wound rolls left will able to save out all the wounds (another kill point for Will in my turn).  
1 Ogryn vs 29 Gants, this one was going to take a while.
Will's turn was mainly him finally finishing off my Plasma unit with the Trygon, my lone Ogryn holding up Will's right wing fully of Gants for both player turns (three 5+ armour saves one round was jammy but I had a chance to win a combat when they were outside Synapse but just couldn't manage it). 

End of Turn 3: W 10 - 3 D

Turn 4: Sometimes crazy works

With nothing but pride at stack (so nothing then!) I decided to hover the Vendetta to aim at the Tervigon (yes it was T9 again this turn!). the Russ managed to take a wound off with the Battle cannon (needing to not scatter and get a 5+ to wound) and as I picked up the three dice for the Vendetta's Lascannons I thought this could just go my way. Three misses (three 3's), but fear not they are twin linked. Up pops three 4's, get in all I needed was the same result again (Will's exact words), so that's what I rolled! Will was not impressed in the least.
Now you see a T9 Tervigon...
...now you don't!
Will then responds by detonating the Vendetta with the Hive Guard, boo! Oh and the Ogryn died of shock at my luck with the Tervigon releasing the Gants on the right.

End of turn 4: W 12 - 4 D

Turn 5: The death of hope (and walkers)

I try to snatch a kill point from the Hive guard but realise that they are a rediculous T6 and despite my Battle cannonn pinging two wounds the Bolters bounce leaving Will to scuttle them away. Eventually my Sentinels that had been playing patty cake with a Tyranid Prime and it's 30 ablative Gant wounds finally exploded hitting the whole unit (only killed a few). Another unit of Gants wreck a chimera from it's side armour the Trygon wrecks the other Chimera leaving me with only one unit, the great Leman Russ! 
You'd think I'd revers and Template those critters, but I had only eyes for  the Hive Guard
End of Turn 5: W 14 - 4 D

Turn 6: I wonder what it feels like to win?

With only a Russ and a prayer I open fire on the Trygon with four wounds left, gettuing it down to one! So...damn...close. It then rips the Russ apart with the help from a few of it's Gant friends (though it turned out it hand;t needed it after all). Will can claim the Line breaker.

End of turn 6: W 17 - 4 D (Auto win for tabling opponent)

This game may seem like the stuff of nightmares for the player on the wrong end of it but it was fun to play despite the fact that it was so painfully obvious I was humped from turn two. I am going to have to re-introduce the Company Command Squad as order are now essential to maximising the limited shooting that my army has. Thus is a really sad conclusion as I really like playing something different but I can find no other way of going forward without having to buy and paint a whole bunch of models (not going to happen). Will and I were not very impressed with the options Tyranids have for Flying Monstrous Creatures as Harpies guns cannot be fired at flyers and Tyrants are just too expensive. As a peculiar aside all Will's games have used the Hammer and Anvil deployment and I will be interested to see how it plays using the other set ups. 

I'll be bringing my Guard to Will's at the weekend and hope to try out the new list.

3 comments:

  1. Another game of 6th, another munting that couldve been called before the half way point. interesting stuff! Hopefully those of us on the receiving ends can start remedying this soon!
    I'll be bringing my deldar saturday too, i also have a slightly new list to try!

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    1. 6th seems pretty brutal at 1500 pts but also very fun. I like the fact that almost every army has a foil so there aren't any auto wins. Saturday should give us a few more interesting battle reports.

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    2. I'll be sure to bring a camera :)

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