I attended this great event last year, bringing along the Orks of Waaagh! Blaktoof. It was my first proper tournament (think I finished third last?!) and I was really impressed at the high standard of play and company. I think that, whilst tournament play is by its very nature strongly focussed on trying to win each game as mercilessly as possible, a friendly atmosphere and sense of camaraderie is very important. Suffice to say I was really looking forward to going back this year and had thought long and hard about my army list. Of course the Tryanids of Hive Fleet Askepios were my weapon of choice for the event, here's my 1750 list:
Hive Tyrant with Lash Whip & Bonesword, Old Aversary, Hive Commander
(Psychic Powers Paroxysm & Leech Essence)
3 Tyrant Guard
2 x 3 Hive Guard
The Doom of Malantai in a Mycetic Spore
2 x Tervigons (Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst, Cluster Spines)
2 x 10 Termegants
2 x Trygons with Adrenal Glands
No surprises for anyone there then!
Game One - Seize Ground, Dawn of War
Finding ourselves randomly assigned to Table 1, my opponent Mark and I set about the first game - 5 objectives, my favourite! Mark was using his friend's Ultramarines, which though very nicely painted, I didn't manage to get a picture of (sorry!). The list was something like:
Captain with Relic Blade & Digital Weapons
Dreadnought with Assault Cannon & Extra Armour
5 Assault Terminators with Lightning Claws
Tactical Squad with Missile Launcher & Flamer
Tactical Squad with Missile Launcher & Flamer, Sgt. with Power Sword
Tactical Squad with Missile Launcher & Flamer, Sgt. with Power Fist (in a Rhino)
Scout Squad with Missile Launcher & a couple of sniper rifles
Full Devastator Squad with 4 Heavy Bolters
Predator Tank (Autocannon & Lascannon-sponsons)
We placed objectives (one in the middle, one in each quarter), I won the dice-off and chose to go 2nd. In objectives games very often getting the last turn is more important than getting first turn, and I figured that by forcing him to set up first I'd at least get to see where his big guns were going to be. He deployed a tactical squad in cover at either end of his deployment zone, put his Termies in Deep Strike, his Scouts into Outflank, and the rest coming in on T1. I answered with 2 Tervigons, deployed in cover, opposing the marines. I kept the Trygons and the Doom in Deep Strike, everything else coming in on T1.
He brought his Devastators on in the middle, giving them a good field of fire, backed up by the Tactical Squad in the Rhino and the Captain. To my right the Predator trundled on and opened up at the nearest Tervigon, failing to wound the brute. The Dreadnought came on to oversee proceedings on the left of the table. My Turn and on came the Tyrant with his Guard, making for some area terrain in the middle of the table. Both Tervigons spawned a healthy brood and cast catalyst (one on the Tyrant, the other failed). The Hive Guard took up positions at either side of the table to later advance and deal with the Dreadnought and Predator.
T2 saw the marines staying put to shoot. They didn't have too many tempting targets at this stage so I took fairly minimal casualties from shooting. Onto my turn and (thanks to +1 reserves from Hive Commander) down came the Doom to the left of the table, whilst both Trygons popped up to say hello to the marines on the right. With minimal scatter they were well placed for an assault next turn. At the rear, gaunt-spawning continued apace and I now enough to start making a move towards the objectives, keeping the Tervi's in cover of course! The Tyrant continued his advance, while the Doom inflicted casualties on 3 nearby units. Readying to use cataclysm on the Devastators, he failed his psychic test but survived the perils of the Warp - oh well, worth a go!
Subsequent turns saw the Scouts Outflanking to my left, but without support they were dealt with by termegant shooting and assault. The Doom, assaulted by the Dreadnought, miraculously survived 3 or 4 rounds of combat with the mechanised veteran, ammassing himself up to a mighty S10 from the nearby marines (whilst whittling them down) and eventually besting the Dreadnought. He'd done sufficient damage to the scoring units on the left hand side of the table that the Gaunts were able to grab the objective the marines had been guarding.
To the right of the Table, one of the Trygons dealt with the Predator whilst the other started work on the Tactical Squads. The subsequent counter-attack from the Power-fist squad and the Captain was enough to drop one of the beasts, but not both. I'd cleared enough space that as the Gaunts advanced they were able to grab the marine's objective on the right hand side of the table. The central objective, which had never been challenged, was grabbed by the Gaunts.
The arrival of the Terminators in my Deployment Zone on Turn 4 game me pause for thought however. All of my hard hitting units were well up the other end of the table and in no position to repel the veterans. It came down, once again, to the Gaunts to do the work! Massed fleshborer fire dropped, I think, 3 of them, whilst the Hive Guard managed to cause another casualty. Some good luck there me thinks, then again you can only roll so many 2+'s before you roll a 1! Anyway the last one was dealt with in assault and that was that. A great start to the day - I had all the objectives! Full points for game one.
The break between Game 1 & 2 was deliberately to allow folk to wander around and inspect armies, placing their votes for best army. There were some really stunning armies on show. I had to get a photo of Richard Simm's rather innovative Adeptus Mechanicus force, which was being played 'Counts as' using Codex Tyranids.
I was in for a treat here, one of my favourite things about going to events is seeing how creative people can be with their armies. My opponent Euan had gone to great lengths to put together a heavily themed army using mainly Space Marine & Necron parts, which looked so awesome I had to catch a (sorry, rather blurry) snap of them!
The army played using the Chaos Space Marines codex, with the list being something like:Ahriman
3 x Thousand Sons Squads (of about 8) including Aspiring sorcerors
Chaos Dreadnought with TL Lascannon
4 Terminators with Mark of Slaanesh
Defiler with 2 close combat weapons
Predator with TL Autocannon
2 Obliterators
An uncomfortable amount of AP3 capability in there! And all those 4+ invulnerables were sure to take some of the punch out of my monstrous creature assaults. On the other hand I knew that one advantage, or potential advantage, I could bring to the table was superior numbers. Some good rolls for gaunt-spawning and I've have the ability to make the tainted marines take lots and lots of saves!
We rolled off and again I had the choice to choose first or second. Again I chose second, eager to see how Euan would set up before committing my own force. We placed the objectives, as per the house rules for the game, outside our deployment zones and a minimum 6'' from the table egde, so no matter what we'd have to move to get them! Euan set up his whole army minus the Obliterators who went into Deep Strike. Looking at the table and not liking the look of my own table quarter (far from objectives, no cover - no good at all!) I took a gamble and tried something I've never done before - and didn't deploy anything. The whole lot went into reserve, with one Tervigon outflanking, and the Trygons and Doom Deep Striking again.
Early turns, unsurprisingly, were uneventful as the marines secured their home objective whilst marching on mine. Turn 2 saw the arrival of the obliterators, which was unlucky as I still had no units on the table. My turn 2 saw the arrival of the Tyrant + Guard, a unit of Hive Guard, a Tervigon and a termegant brood from my board edge. A lucky outflanking roll saw the Tervigon arrive just where I wanted him, obscured by a multi-storey car-park of a building where he'd be safe for a turn at least. The Trygons arrived near to the Tervigon, threatening Euan's objective but little more.
Over the next couple of turns the Tyrant, guard, a tervigon and termegants overcame the two marine units that had marched on my objective. The Hive Guard provided some supporting fire, hampering the predator. They were subsequently charged and killed by the Defiler, who was then counter attacked and destroyed by the other hive guard unit that arrived from reserve next turn. With the home objective secure, eyes turned to the away objective...
By the later turns only one of the Trygons had taken wounds from shooting. The Tervigon had ensconced herself in the multi-storey and had been pumping out a rather obscene number of gaunts. The Terminators made a sterling effort to try and shift the mass of bodies, supported by some inferno bolter-fire, and Ahriman himself joined the fray, instant killing the full-strength Trygon!! He'd doen himself proud, but fell soon after, as did the marines and Terminators, leaving only the badly-damaged Dreadnought engaged in combat with the wounded Trygon. The game ended and I'd secured both objectives - my gamble in keeping the whole army in reserve had most definitely paid off - thanks Hive Commander :)
Game 3 - Pitched Battle, Annihilation
Last game, and the one I'd already been most nervous about. Historically I've not performed well in kill points games so had been practising hard - I just had to hope it would be enough! Especially as I was up against last year's winner Donald McCallum, who was this year using Tyranids. Past experience of Nids has never gone well for me (see Britcon!) - it wasn't going to be easy!
Donald's list then:
Tyrant with 2 x talons, Paroxysm & Leech Essence, Hive Commander
5 Ymgarl Stealers
Deathleaper
The Doom in a Spore
2 x 5 Genestealers with Broodlord
Termegant brood
Tervigon with toxin, adrenaline, catalyst
Mawloc
Trygon Prime
I won the roll-off and chose to go first, setting most of the army on the deployment line. The flanks were guarded by Trygons, Tervi's and Hive Guard, shielding the 'easy-pickings' gaunt units; whilst the big ol' Tyrant went square in the middle, ready to respond to the threat wherever it emerged. Donald deployed no units, turning my trick from last game against me! My tension levels rose in the eerily quiet early turns as my forces gravitated towards the centre of the board, away from any edges that might be hiding outflanking genestealers or terrain that might be housing those wacky ymgarl stealers!
Wave 1 of Donald's attack saw the Trygon Prime & Mawloc arriving behind my lines, to my left. The Ymgarls appeared from the cracks of a crater midway up the left flank. A unit of genestealers joined the fight on the left flank, whilst the Tervigon lumbered on the Donald table edge. I sustained some damage from the Mawloc surfacing and the genestealers but was left in a position to move everything far enough away from the Trygon Prime to stop him charging, and get some help to the units the stealers had hit.
Wave 2 (so turn 3) saw the arrival of everything else. My Doom arrived over by the Trygon, Mawloc and 'Stealer central, causing a few wounds here and there. Donald's Doom decided to capitalise on the bunched up formation I'd put myself in trying to get out of charge range of his Trygon. No biggie, I thought, remembering how surprisingly the mediocre the Doom's attack can be on occassion, but I was in for a shock: Down went both my Trygons, all the Tyrant Guard and an unwounded Tervigon was crippled, hobbling along on his final Wound. Once the models were off and wound counters allocated, we each took a moment to consider the impact of that attack. The game had taken a sharp turn in a direction that did not look good for Hive Fleet Askepios.
In desperate need of reinforcements, I spawned gaunts from both Tervigons. Perhaps tired from the previous games, they each spawned minimal (7 or 8) broods and dried up. Enraged by the destruction of his Trygons, the Hive Tyrant ordered the nearby Hive Guard to open fire on the pulsing Doom of Malantai. Some sharp shooting spelled instant-death for Donald's Doom, whilst mine found itself embroiled in combat with some genestealers and their broodlord. He did however manage to inflict some crucial wounds to aid in the neutralisation of the mawloc, trygon and ymgarls. Deathleaper met his end (I think!) to yet more heat-seeking harpoons form the hiveguard. A combined arms assault (Hive Tyrant & gaunts with Tervigon support) saw off the gargoyles in a flash, whilst Donald's Tervigon set up a gaunt farm that swiftly set its sights on my crippled Tervigon. Miraculously the beast held on in there despite a flurry of poisoned attacks, the 3+ armour and FNP were much needed! To my right flank the Termies and Hive Guard met their end to the Winged Hive Tyrant. However thanks to some sneaky useof my Tyrant's paroxysm the Flyrant didn't chew through those units as quickly as might have, meaning they were all he got through in the game.
I'd been keeping a rough tally in my head, ever conscious of the unique kill points allocation rules in play for this mission (3 for HQ's, 1 for Troops, 2 for everything else, with an extra point awarded for each section of the enemy's FO chart wiped out) and trying to focus my attacks accordingly. As we sped through the final turns, trying to cram as much carnage into our alloted time as possible, all I knew was that it was going to be close.... The final tally of 15 to 12 in my favour was testament to that! I'd won by the skin of my gribbly teeth!
Conclusion
So ended a really enjoyable day of 40K. 3 wins out of 3 games and healthy complement of victory points meant that I just scraped through to win the event, which made it all the more enjoyable! I was really pleased with my performance in each of the games. In Game 1 both the army I was up against and the scenario were strongly in favour of the type of army I've come to use with the Nids; Game 2 was the first time I'd used the null-deployment tactic, a gambit that proved succesful; and Game 3 I managed to hang in there after a crippling 'Doom'-ing by focussing on maximising kill points. As usual I made plenty of mistakes but every game is a learning curve - and for once the things I did right seemed to have outweighed those I did wrong! I was pleased also with the army as a whole, it was versatile, tough, maneuverable and had good offensive capability. There's a reason most Nid armies seem to be much of a muchness these days - it's a formula that works! I'd still be interested to see how it fares against mech-spammed Imperial Guard, but that's a challenge for another day!
To finish off, here's another photo of Euan's excellent xeno-corrupted marine army, which won the 'Best Army' prize - well done!
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