Inaction

Recently I have felt my interest in gamesworkshop and 40k on a low ebb. So I took a break from the hobby for a couple of months. I am just beginning to feel the urge to paint and game coming back. So I have started on my Tyranid force again.

My aim is to have the following 2000 point army ready by mid next year (I know that sounds like a long time away but I am a painfully slow painter)
Parasite it mortrex
Tyranid prime
3 x hive guard
3 x hive guard
3 x venom thrope
10 x termagaunt
12 x termagaunt
Tervigon
Tervigon
10 x genestealers
10 x genestealers
20 x gargoyles
Trygon
Trygon

I know it's not a competitive army list by a long shot, but it looks like fun to play. Have to see if it works out..

On the gaming front, I recently attended Bracknell Forest Gamers escalation competition. I took my Tau along for a soon as I haven't got another army painted to standard. The tournament consisted of four games each with an increase of 500 points on an initial 500 point force.

My first game was a kill points game against a Tyranid player with a large squad of gargoyles, a squad of y genestealers and a squad of normal genestealers. I eliminated his bugs before they got into combat giving me a win for no loss on my part.
My second game was against an Eldar player, he was wiping me off the table, my dice were letting me down on the armour penetration and damage rolls. However he was unable to complete the mission objective resulting in a draw..
The third game was a capture and control against an ork list. I managed to win after a heroic charge by the broadsides.

The final game was against my friends star wars themed guard army. This was an objective game with four objectives. With my armies 3 scoring units and the majority of his army scoring, I would have to more or less have to wipe him out, only I don't have the fire power to take out that,many guardsmen. I managed to get a bit of a lucky win in,this one, with 3 contested objectives and one in my hands by the end of the game.

This netted me fourth place overall with 18 points, but not many victory points. Given my lack of practice over the past few months I'm quite happy with that performance.

Tyranid Tervigon

A few photos of my Tervigon for my Tyranid army.

Just got the rest of the 1300 points left to paint now :-(.

Blog Wars Game 1

Capture and Control, Spearhead deployment.

My first game was against Siph Horridus of weemen blog and his pretty awesome looking Relictors space marine chapter.

His army can be found here although consisted of the following:

Terminator chaplain
Tigurius
5 x Sternguard veterans in drop pod
5 x Terminator assault sqauad
Rifleman Dreadnought
10 Tactical marines (missile, plasma)
10 Tactical marines (heavy bolter, meltagun) Rhino APC
5 x Assualt marines (Sergeant, Powerfist)
Attack Bike multimelta
Landraider Redeemer

Deployment:
I won the roll off for deployment and elected to go first, I wanted the opportunity to pop his landraider before the terminators got too close.
I set up in the corner that would give my railguns maximum fire arcs into his deployment area, pathfinders deployed into the building to make maximum use of their marker lights. The Devilfish deployed to the far left of my deployment area so I could make a push for his objective with the fire knife battlesuits late game.

Siph deployed the majority of his army behind the trees, landraider at the front, his tactical squad with missile combat squading one half taking the objective the other sitting on the hill with the missile launcher. His dreadnought sat in the trees.

Siph failed to seize the initiative.

Turn 1:
I mainly shuffled my forces round a bit to try and get better fire arcs on his army, a small squad of firewarriors embarked the devilfish and started moving slowly towards his objective but enough. My Shas’El started to move towards the ruins forward of my deployment to intercept the landraider with his meltagun if need be. My broadsides took advantage of their ASS to line up and shoot the landraider.

Shooting saw the pathfinders markerlight the landraider which combined with the broadsides to remove that threat, his assault terminators would now be foot slogging it across the board. On my left flank my squad of fire knifes immobilised the dreadnought in the trees. Hammerhead missed the Rhino. Everything else was out of range. My assault move was just moving battlesuits back into cover.

In Siphs’ turn his drop pod landed in my deployment area disgorging it’s cargo of sternguard with Tigurius. His terminators started the long march towards my lines. The assault squad moved behind the ruins my shas el was moving towards, closely followed by the rhino.
His shooting didn’t cause me any problems, with the sternguard turning one squad of firewarriors into fish pasta bake. The dreadnought, missile and attack bike failing to do any damage to my vehicles.

Turn 2:
I brought Farsight and co to bear on the sternguard, and doubled my shas el back to help. The large squad of firewarriors sitting on the objective moved round to fire on them as did the broadsides. The devilfish continued moving towards his objective followed by the fireknifes. The hammer head moved to bring its guns on the attack bike.
In the shooting phase Tigirius and co disappeared in a hail of pulse, plasma, missiles, and supersonic projectiles. In an epic display of shooting ineptitude the fireknifes and hammerhead failed to take care of the attack bike.

The Relictors continued their advance with the terminators running forward, his assault squad moved around the ruins ready for a charge into my lines next turn. His terminators ended in a position to charge next turn as well. The attack bike drove behind some ruins and shot at my hammerhead, failing to hit. His missile launcher bounced off of my devilfish.

Turn 3:
My spare squad of firewarriors and battlesuits turned up. The battlesuits landed near his dreadnought, with the intention of pouring fire into his combat squad on the objective, the additional firewarriors came on behind my objective just reinforce it. Movement wise, I placed the pretty much everything I had available in range of the terminators.
After pouring pretty much my entire armies worth of fire into the termintors they died. The newly arrived battle suits killed off two marines in the combat squad. In the assault phase I moved my shas’el into the open, closing the charge from the assault squad into the firewarriors. (meant sacrificing my Shas’el, but worth it to hold the objective). The fireknifes continued on to his objective behind the advancing devilfish.

Siph moved his assault squad to charge my Shas’El, closely followed by his rhino full of tacticals, his attack bike moved around to try for my hammer head again. Shooting saw his immobilised dreadnought fire at my deep striked battlesuits. His missile launcher once more proved ineffective against my devilfish, as did his attack bike against my hammerhead. His combat squad fired at my battlesuits stripping them of their drone protection.
In the assault phase the assault squad killed off the Shas’El for no loss.

Turn 4:
Farsight and the two squads of firewarriors surrounded the assault squad, while the devilfish, fireknifes and firestorm battlesuits moved to kill the combat squad on his objective.
Once the shooting had ended the assault squad was down to their sergeant and the combat squad was no more. Farsight charged the assault squad sergeant, killing him then consolidated so that the squad in the rhino couldn’t reach the objective. 

Siph was down to precious few options now, he had half a tactical squad on a hill facing off against my squad of fireknifes, firestorms and devilfish and a full tactical squad in a Rhino which couldn’t reach the objective. He drove forwards and rotated his rhino, disembarking the tactical marines. He turbo boosted his attack bike behind the ruin where the rhino and assault squad had previously been. His shooting caused no casualties (that I remember).

Turn 5:
Farsight and my firewarriors moved to fire on the disembarked tactical marines, while the hammerhead and broadsides aimed to take out the rhino. On the far side of the field the devilfish moved to claim the objective with the fireknifes and firestorms running to surround it.
I fired the sub munitions round at the back of the rhino catching all ten marines in the blast, slaying four of them. Rapid fire plasma and pulse rounds killed all but 2 of the others. The broadsides wrecked the rhino preventing it from contesting the objective. Farsight finished off the remaining tacticals in combat. (kill tally of three marines thus far), consolidating so that the bike couldn’t turbo boost onto my objective.

I think Siph realised at this point that the game was more or less over. After measuring a few times his remaining combat squad couldn’t reach my guys on his objective, nor his attack bike my objective. He gave up at this point.

Conclusion:
Honestly, I think winning first turn and nailing his landraider was the deciding point in this game, with his terminators and chaplain left to foot slog it across a killing field, it made his hardest hitting unit ineffective and I was able to ignore them to concentrate on more immediate concerns (drop podding sternguard).

Siph was a fantastic person to play against and I would happily play him again at the next blog wars. I hope he had as much fun in the game as I did.

Blog Wars 2011: Result

After a fantastic days worth of gaming with people around the UK at Blog Wars, I have to say a huge thanks to Alex at from the Fang for organising everything, you couldn’t have done a better job. It was a hugely enjoyable day and everyone that I spoke to seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

After my 3 games I ended up placing 3^rd with 2 wins and a draw separated from second place by a narrow margin in victory points. This is far better then I expected to place, given the inherent weaknesses in the Tau codex I would have been more then happy with a mid table finish. I have to admit that given my performance in the recent ASMOH tournament I was feeling a little underwhelmed with my Taus recent performance.

Every opponent that I faced was a great opponent to play against and I hope to play against them again in the future. I will include full battle reports and photos over the next few days as I get chance to write them, but for now I’ll just write-up a quick summary.

Game 1: Spearhead, Capture and Control.

Vs. Siph Horridus of Weemen blog (Relictors space marines) **Apologies for incorrect information**

This game started off well for me, I crippled his army in the opening stages by destroying his landraider leaving his hammer terminator unit to foot slog it across the board, I was pretty much able to concentrate my fire on individual units as they became a threat. Allowing me to secure my own objective and make a dash for his. Unfortunately Siph wasn’t able to recover from his earlier losses and handed in the towel at turn 5.

Victory and 30 points for the Tau

Game 2: Dawn of war, kill points

Vs. Ginge of need more tanks (Orks)

Whenever I play Ginge and we roll (or get given) Dawn of war games, I have a habit of always winning 1^st turn, this game was no different. Ginge was unable to seize. By targeting his transports early and leaving the majority of his units stuck far from combat I was able to more or less dictate the course of this battle. Ginge seemingly being unable to make a 4+ cover save didn’t help him at all though as his bikes dropped like flies to anything that shot in their general direction.

Victory and a further 30 points for the Tau

Game 3: Pitched battle, 5 objectives

Vs Andy Pattison, Sons of Sanguinius

After losing first turn I knew this was going to be an uphill battle (hell it’s bad enough playing Guard with Tau as it is). Andy more or less dominated the game, with me taking heavy casualties in the first couple of turns (couldn’t make a cover or invulnerable save at all). With the game coming to a close, I had a squad of fire warriors clinging onto one objective for dear life, while Andy held 3. I was able to charge into combat with one large squad to drag them off their objective while contesting another with gundrones (got to love them drones for that). Game went the full 7 turns, and on the final round of combat I failed 4 out of 5 armour saves. Andys consolidation roll was too low to get back into range of the objective.

Draw and 10 points for the Tau

So despite my final third place position, there is still stuff that I would have done differently. The main thing though would have been to avoid taking Farsight. Had I known about the allowance of forge world goodies, I would have taken Shas’O Ra’ail (sp?). This guy would have had a bigger impact on the games then Farsight by a long shot. The XV9 armour and specialist ammo would have had a greater impact then the dawn blade.

Overall though, I had a fantastic day and would definitely sign up for the next one.

How awesome does this look!!!

Video of the space marine game, coming out on an Xbox 360 near you soon, (not want a 360 yet Ginge :-P

Blog wars army list 2011

So here is my army list for Blog Wars 2011 with about 47 hrs to go before the deadline.
This army has had absolutely no play testing. Nor has it been designed to face any particular army. It's just been a case of hashing my ASMOH list to fit O'Shovah in and moving points around till I hit 1750.

My plan is to not die too horribly. Although I would have liked to have added kroot and piranhas to the list. I don't have any built or painted. With working on my Tyranids I wouldn't have time to build or paint them regardless.

O'Shovah (170)
Bodyguard, plasmagun, missile pod, multi-tracker, hardwired drone controller 2x shield drones (102)
Bodyguard, plasmagun, missile pod, multi-tracker (72)

Shas'El, fusion gun, missile pod, positional relay, Hard wired target lock, hard wired drone controller 1x shield drone 1x gun drone (119)

3x Crisis Suits (211)
Plasma gun, missile pod multitrackers
Leader with hardwired drone controller and 2 gun drones

3x Crisis suits (179)
2x Burst cannon, 3x missile pod, 1x fusion gun, multitrackers
Leader with hardwired drone controller and 2 gun drones

6 firewarriors (60)
6 firewarriors (60)
6 firewarriors (60)
9 firewarriors (90)

6x Pathfinders (72)
Devilfish, disruption pod (85)

Broadsides (305)
Advanced stabilisation system
-Leader, plasma, hardwired drone controller 2x shield drones, hard wired target lock, hard wire multi-tracker
-Broadside with ASS and plasma
-Broadside with ASS SMS

Hammerhead (165)
Railgun, burst cannons, disruption pod and multi-tracker.

Sent from my iPhone

Tyranid prime conversion

Apologies for the crappy iPhone photo but here is a photo of my tyranid prime conversion for tale of 8 gamers.

Blog wars army list part 1

Given my recent kicking at the ASMOH tournament. I'm still of the opinion that my Tau army list needs revisiting. However the following army list isn't much changed list mainly due to the fact that I won't have the models to update my army with for quite some time yet alone have them painted. So I have instead made a couple of little tweaks here and there as it were.
Blog wars requires that your army include a special character, although for Tau they have stated that you don't necessarily have to take one, I thought it beat to take one, saves any arguments later also keeps my army to the same sort of theme as others then. Although the Tau codex doesnt have any givens when it comes to special characters such as marbo (boy does that guy get around, seen in every guard list this side of catchan) So let's look at the contenders.
First up. Farsight.
pros:
Everyone who can access the armoury gets free bonding knifes. Saving a total of 15 points off my army list. Woot.
Preferred enemy against the entire ork player that's gonna be there.
Has a plasma rifle,
Dawn blade giving better chance of punching through vehicles in combat and might scare a lonely marine squad that has no powerfists or melta guns in.
Cons:
Ludicrously expensive for what he brings to the table.
Takes away loads from the table when you actually pay the points for him. Total restriction on available unit choices.
You get confused into thinking he is a combat monster just because he has a power weapon. He isn't.

So Farsight, is pretty bad to be honest. Totally restricting your force options while giving precious little in return.

Shadowsun
Has fusion guns and the ability to target them at 2 different units a turn. Unfortunately being short ranged weapons this generally means that you need to get close to the enemy to use them. The command link drone is nice. Allowing units within 18" to use her leadership for morale and pinning checks. The stealth field is a nice benefit. However, most enemies are going to be closing on you pretty quickly and won't matter past the first two turns of the game. That's pretty much where the good stuff ends. Now for the bad. 175 points!! Not and independent character till her drones expire, but given she's toughness 3 a lucky burst of fire from an assault cannon could do for her entire unit. Surprising high odds (around 10%). So she wouldn't last much beyond the last drone regardless.

So too much for what she can do. A suicide crisis with twinlinked fusion and a targeting array could accomplish the same for far less points.

And finally Aun'Va plus guard.
Pros:
Erm. Well I guess he could die. And your entire army passes it's low morale checks, gains furious charge and preferred enemy (improbable)
Cons: 205 points, please I could nearly have another 3 broadsides for that.
No shooting ability
Sucks in combat.
He dies your army runs away. (probable)
No real use apart from to help your opponent.

Okay, not really much to say here. But the guy is going to cripple your army far more the farsight does. While approaching land raider costs, space wolves get Logan grimnar, angels mephisto, tau? Get this guy? Come next codex I'd be expecting someone in a dreadknight esk battlesuit with 10 railguns. I think it would have been better if his wheel chair could shoot mega death lasers like the prophets from halo and he came free if you took a second squad of firewarriors. Might have been worth gluing together at that point.

So for my list I will be playing Farsight as my special character. Not because I think he's awesome. Mainly because I think he's the lesser of 3 evils. Although I do think my conversion is pretty awesome.

ASMOH: what went wrong

Edit: a quick hello to Rathstar who was also at asmoh as well and did rather well with his dark eldar. Was great to meet a fellow blogger and Tau enthusiast.
Well popular opinion is that you learn more from a defeat then from a victory. That being true, I learnt a lot from my games at the sad muppets society a small matter of honour tournament.
I can safely say that I did learn a lot. My games seemed to be pretty close but ultimately I couldn't get a victory in any of my games.

My first game was against an ork army. Mission was kill points, pitched battle deployment at 1250 points. First thing to say is that my opponent was a fantastic person to play against. However, the problem that I faced against his army were the low kill points in his force. Most of which involved killing large units of troops or hard to kill nob bikers to get kill points. The 3 relatively easy kill points his army had I got fairly easily. My bad rolling can to the fore in this game (as would be true throughout the tournament) however without meaning to make excuses for my game I could have played better. Having lost the roll for deployment. I should have placed the majority of my force opposite his bikers in a refused flank set up. Rather then mainly central. Admittedly this would have left me closer to his bikes they would have had to weather the storm against my entire force for two turns before being able to charge anything meaningful. My inexperience in facing nob bikers made me set up more centrally leaving me exposed to more of his army ultimately costing me the game.
Lesson learned- force the opponent to meet you on your terms. His bikers would have been a threat, but not with 5 vs my army.

My second game was against a null deployment tyranid force for capture and control. I made the mistake of bringing my army in on the first turn. His army arrived on the second turn, right next to mine. Although I took relatively few casualties from his shooting, my own shooting in the following turn was fairly poor. Meaning that his army could ravage mine with impunity. A could of mistakes that I made which could have given me a bit more of an opportunity to claw back a victory. If I had left my hammerhead off the board or more central in my force. Then I could have dropped a pie plate on the termagants holding his objective. Being as they were out of synapse range chances are they would have run for it off the board. As it was I ended the game on a loss as his termagants managed to get within 3" of my objective on their run move. By quarter of an inch. Curses.

Lesson learned: I don't have to deploy my army in this case it has done me more harm then good. I should have held the majority back for a counter attack. Maybe kept some of the pathfinders to come on first turn about 3ft from each other. Forcing him to separate his units to engage both of my units of pathfinders. Then as my army arrived in subsequent turns I could have dealt with whichever half of his force was the most dangerous.

My third game was against an outflanking scout army with a few thunderfire cannons and shrike to give the army fleet. With the majority of his army outflanking, their wasn't much to engage in the first couple of turns. I did eliminate the thunderfire cannons fairly quickly. But the rest of his army outflanked more or less straight into combat with my force, either tying me up or killing me. Both were just as bad as the other. The game ended with him managing to roll high enough on his fleet rolls for two units, 6 and 4 respectively, to get a 5th turn win, contesting my objective on a four and just getting within 3 inches of an objective. Given what was left of our armies at the end of turn 5 had we had a 6th turn I would have managed to finish off 2 of his squads, leaving me with the victory.
Lesson learned: in this game I should have been more aggressive. Despite my obvious disadvantages when he got close, had I been more aggressive I could have prevented him from tying my more important units up in combat.

My fourth and final game was pitched battle 6 objectives, against a blood angels player with 2 drop podding dreadnoughts and a couple of outflanking baals, etc. This game went alright, the only thing that really hampered my game was the inability to stop one of his ironclad dreadnoughts. With a few lucky difficult terrain rolls he made it into combat with my broadsides. From that point there was nothing I had to eliminate his dreadnought. Missile pod fire just pattered off it like a light summers rain. The game ended with both parties holding 2 objectives. He hadn't realised that one of my devilfish still had firewarriors in. Note if he had asked I would have told him, I hadn't realised he didn't know though.
Lessons learned. I need to increase my redundancy. Once my broadsides had been engaged by his iron clad in combat, my hammerheads having been taken out by his dreads when they first dropped.

Notes on battle and observations:
- my army performed alright. Two narrow losses and one tight draw, all of which could have easily gone to a draw or victory on my point.
- vehicles were useless, as soon as they took one penetrating hit they dropped from the sky.
- Broadsides were great but could have done with two units of 2 rather then one of 3, should have dropped the plasma guns from them as well. But I took what I had available.
- Firewarriors really are useless, less then. Despite having the highest hit rate in my army (in the last two games they actually hit half the time which was better then my units that I rely on to do damage). They lack anything remotely threatening to anything or anyone. A meltagun or two in a unit would have made a difference against most armies. Forcing my opponents to risk getting close or choosing discretion over valour.
-devilfish are rubbish, yeah it may be one of the better surviving transports, but is it has no offensive capability, no firepoints (not that that's a real concern when firewarriors have no decent guns). I think it sums up the tau army perfectly, over priced and a lack of offensive capability.
-I think I may have to get more infantry in my army, be it battlesuits, kroot or maybe some lighter vehicles such as piranhas only to be used for blocking and contesting.

Army List for ASMOH 2011

As I will be attending ASMOH tomorrow, I thought I may as well post the army list that I will be taking. This army hasn’t had much play testing, however in the few games I have managed to play have chalked up a few wins for no losses. There are certain armies I think I will struggle against, mainly Space Wolves and Imperial Guard. This is due to space wolves being far better at shooting and combat, then my Tau, while also being more cost efficient. Imperial guard are better at shooting and can just fill the board with armour for very few points (comparatively), and while missile pods may be great for suppressing rhinos, they start to suffer against chimeras.

Anyway without further ado:

Initial 1250 points

Shas'El:

• Plasmarifle
• missile pod
• multi-tracker
• hardwired drone controller (2 x shield drones)
• hard wired target lock
• hard wired black sun filter
• bonding knife

= 130

3 x crisis suits, plasma rifle, missile pod, multitracker, team leader, bonded hard wired drone controller 2 x gundrones = 216

3 x crisis suits, twin linked missile pod, flamer, team leader, bonded, hard wired drone controller 2 x gun drones = 171

6 x firewarriors = 60

6 x firewarriors = 60

4 x pathfinders = 48

devilfish, disruption pod = 85

3 x broadsides, 2 x plasma rifles, A.S.S. x 3, team leader, bonded, hard wired multitracker, Hw target lock, HW drone controller with 2 x shield drones, HW black sun filter = 313

Hammerhead, railgun, burst cannons, multitracker, disruption pod = 165

  

Additional 500 points

Hammerhead, railgun, burst cannons, multitracker, disruption pod = 165

7 x firewarriors = 70

4 x pathfinders = 48

devilfish, disruption pod = 85

2 x crisis suit plasma gun and missile pod and multitracker = 124

ASMOH: Practice round 2

I had the opportunity to head down to my local Games Workshop again last night for another ASMOH practice game. I couldn’t get a game against the opponent that I wanted to play against (Grey Knights) due to the staff not making a note of my table booking. So I ended up playing a smaller game (1000 Points) against a newer player and his combined Chaos marine and Deamon list. So I trimmed a broadside and a hammerhead from my list to drop me to the 1000 points.

 

Not going to go into too much detail as the game was pretty painful to watch, suffice to say that over the course of the game my opponent hesitated too much over which direction he was taking his models, at first heading in one direction then the other. Ultimately leading to him only reaching a single squad of firewarriors, which I could have moved away but felt bad for him so let him take them out.

 

At the end of the game I had lost a gun drone and the squad of firewarriors for tabling him. This is probably one of the first times I have felt bad about winning a game. So I spent a few minutes after the game going through my opponents mistakes and trying to give him some hints and tips on how to beat me with his army. His crucial mistake was moving in one direction in his first turn and then doubling back. So I encouraged him to be more aggressive with his army, with his army as it stands he was never going to out shoot me, but he could sure as hell have given me a kicking in combat. Against my army he needed to ram his chaos marines down my Taus throat. Sure he’d have taken a few casualties on the way in, but he would have more then made up for it once he got there.

ASMOH practice game

Due to my ongoing commitments I haven't had any opportunity to get some practice games in with my ASMOH list. So I headed out to my local GW to try and get a game in with my 1750 point list. I ended up playing a Demon army.

Deployment: Spearhead

Mission: Multiple objectives (5)

I won the roll for first turn and let him go first, giving me chance to rush objectives at the end.

My opponents list (from memory)
(non-preferred wave)
Keeper of secrets

Nurgle Deamon prince

Tzeentch Deamon prince

15 Deamonettes

(Preferred wave)

Bloodthrister
15 Bloodletters
5 Flamers
large unit of horrors

I castled up my army towards the back of my deployment area, keeping my small squads of firewarriors next to the devilfish for claiming objectives, but wanting to keep my pulse rifles handy for deepstriking deamons. My opponent rolled and got his non-preferred wave.

Turn 1:
He placed his nurgle deamon prince in cover next to the building on my right flank containing my broadsides and pathfinders. coming in on target, His keeper of secrets did likewise in an adjacent building, also landing on target. On the other end of my deployment area his Tzeentch deamon prince landed on target in another building. The only unit to scatter was his deamonettes who scattered towards the centre of the table, in the open, in front of most of my fire lines (oh goodie :-P). He ran his large deamons further into cover to try and keep them out of line of sight the daemonettes only managed to run an inch though so they scattered as far as possible.

My shooting saw mainly shuffling of units to try and get better fire arcs on his units (if I can see a bit of it i can shoot it, discounting weapons of course) One squad of firewarriors moved up to rapid fire at his tzeentch deamon prince (looked like he had wings=had to die). with the aid of four markerlights, a squad of broadsides and a devilfish I managed to kill him off. The deamonettes ate the majority of the rest of my units and perished, leaving 2 squads of battle suits to fire on his keeper of secrets dropping him to one wound.

Turn 2:
Rolling for reserves my opponent got his bloodthrister in near the building on my right flank (broadsides pathfinders) once again not scattering. His nurgle prince targeted my broadsides with some kind of toughness test which I passed. His keeper of secrets fleet of footed towards the same building. In the assault phase his keeper of secrets assaulted up 2 floors and across a couple of inches into my broadsides in the top of the building into a space where I had to move my broadsides to make space for the his greater deamon. His nurgle prince charged the pathfinders on the lower floor wiping them out. His keeper of secrets fluffed his attacks on my broadsides causing no wounds.

My army continued shuffling around to face the main thrust of princes and greater deamons. a squadron of fireknifes and drones taking a wound off the blood thrister.the rest of my army that could see his nurgle prince cast it back into the warp. In combat his keeper of secrets killed a broadside and put a wound on the others killing one of them off. With my return attacks my broadsides didn't get a chance to hit as my shield drone heroically flew into the deamons nether regions stripping it of its final wound (go drone :-P) now who sucks in combat?

Turn 3:
His flamers turned up in the middle of a group of battlesuits and the table edge, once again not scattering. his bloodthrister lept over the building landing in front of a hammerhead. His flamers shot at my battlesuits causing 7 wounds that I apparently don't get saves from (not sure how flamers mange this but apparently they don't allow armour saves) and 1 normal wound. A bit of wound allocation later and I had two battlesuits remaining on one wound each. His greater demon was left standing over the smouldering wreck of a hammerhead.
My turn saw me embarking firewarriors onto devilfish and racing forward to claim objectives. My fire killed of his flamers and bloodthirster, eventually. My rolling had dropped to atrocious an this point. around. Even with markerlight support my suits couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, from inside the barn. But even so I had more  then sufficient firepower to kill his current forces 3x over meaning I scrapped the last wound off his bloodthrister with precious little else left to fire.

Turn 4:
Given that the store manager was telling people to start ending games, this would be the last turn. My opponent landed his bloodletters (scattering 4") and horrors (on target) on two objectives. that were quite close to me.

My turn pretty much consisted of me moving up claiming the objective closest to me and swinging my devilfish forward past his horros disembaking my firewarriors to shot them. My other fish charged towards the bloodletters camping on an objective detaching it's drones to contest that objective. (a brief debate was had with my opponent here saying that I couldn't disembark drones cos it had moved, them saying that they had to disembark from the drone holders, despite me pointing out that they act as a open-topped transport for the drones, finally settling the debate when I said that it doesn't matter either way as they are going to be able to contest the objective with their assault move in any case)

End of game

My opponent seemed quite surprised when I stated that I had won. with 2 objectives contested and the other firmly in my hands. Even with another turn. I had plenty of forces left to carry on contesting the two contested objectives while holding my own. Had I even bothered with my 4th shooting phase His horrors would have been wiped out.

So my practice game went alright, the army worked quite well on the restricted table size with probably too much terrain most of it line of sight blocking, ideal for his highly accurate deepstriking units.

Tyranids Colour Scheme!!

Admittedly it's probably a little late to have just finalised my colour scheme for the tale of eight gamers, being well into phase 2 now. However I have now had chance to get down and do some painting without being disturbed too much.

However this is my final colour scheme for my Tyranids (note it isn't actually as shiny as the first photo looks, bloody flash :-P):

Brace For Battle

(Shamelessly copied due to laziness)
One of my friends will be running a 40k combat patrol doubles tournament at his local gaming group in Portsmouth (UK) on the 28th May this year. The details are available here, though it will be following the very successful Winds of War format established by Bracknell Forest Gamers.

For those who wish to attend as singles he set aside a section of their club forum here so you can chat to like minded people and arrange teams ahead of the day.

Anyone who is interested feel free to ask him any questions you may have here, and other than that hope to hear from you soon with army list submissions :o)


I'll certainly be hoping to go. With ASMOH, blog wars and BFB coming up, looks like it's going to be a busy few weeks for me.

This made me laugh

Saw the following on the gamesworkshop website a few days ago, brought a smile to my face.
How awesome is the carnifex ??

Not sure about you, but I personally would have expected the creature with the better stats and force weapon to win this one. Although, I would have forgone the hammerhand and instead took the 50/50 chance of wounding on 4 attacks, to use the force weapon to kill the carnifex outright before it could breath on you.

To me it seems GW have switched from one approach to the other and then back again, with the Guard codex they wanted to sell loads of Valkyries, which I can't blame them for as they are fantastic models, however as further incentive they made them (and variants) really really cheap, points wise.

With the Tyranid codex they wanted to sell loads of their new Trygon kit, once again a fantastic model, however the approach they have taken with this one is to make all other monstrous creatures unreasonably expensive.

Now, with the Grey Knights codex they have made the dreadknight really cheap. 

Breaking in the Nids

As I finally got my Tyranids for the first round of tale of eight gamers put together and have pretty much got no hope of getting them finished in time for the due date. I took the opportunity to play a couple of games of combat patrol against one of my mates. This worked out quite nicely as he wanted to try out some of my other armies as well. 

My army for the first 500 points consists of the following:

3 x Zoanthropes

10 x Termagants

13 x Hormagaunts (with toxin and adrenal glands)

10 x Genestealers

We played on a 4ft x (just short of) 4ft table as it seemed reasonable for a 500 point per side game.

Game 1:

Vs My Tau, annihilation, Spearhead deployment. Tyranids going first.

Tau army, 3x fireknifes (with 2 drones and bonding knife), 3 x Firestorms (with 2 drones and bonding knife), 6x Firewarriors.

The game started off with my tyranids running across the open ground in the centre, the termagants heading into the comfort of a building and the Hormagants sticking behind zoanthropes for a cover save. The Tau fire removed a few hormagaunts from the back of the pack but not causing any significant damage. Then the genestealers came on directly behind his battlesuits, this pretty much put the game in the tyranids hands. Once the battle suits were engaged with the genestealers and then the hormagaunts piled in, the Tau were swept from the board.

Tyranids win!

Tactical Notes: This proved to be quite a good game for the Tyranids, the outflanking genestealers proving my opponents undoing, tying up the large majority of his firebase from turn 2 onwards. If I was playing my Tau I would have deployed slightly differently to minimize the effect of the genestealers outflanking at least get myself a turn of shooting before they would be in combat. 

This was also a good opportunity to show my opponent just how bad Tau were for an apparent elite shooting army. Doesn't matter how good your guns are if you can't hit the broadside of a barn.

Game 2:

Vs my space wolf army from winds of war 2011, Night fight, multiple objectives (4)

5x long fangs 4 missiles, 5 x grey hunter MoTW meltagun, razoback TLHB, 5 x grey hunter MoTW meltagun, razoback L+TLPG, 3x wolf guard, MoTW 2 x storm bolter.

I deployed my Hormagaunts and infiltrated my genestealers after winning first turn. Paul, deployed a razorback, with an embarked squad in it exactly 18" away from my hormagunts. By some miracle I was able to roll a 6 for the difficult terrain test for my gaunts and a 6 for their fleet move enabling the gaunts to reach the  razorback. Which they miraculously destroyed :-P. The genestealers just edged forward in the building to get nearer the enemies deployment zone. My termagants and zoanthropes came on centre back of the board and ran forwards to try and get the hormagaunts into synapse range quickly. My opponents army came on, the wolf guard and second razorback squad engaging the genestealers, the long fangs running into position and, squad from the destroyed razorback engaging my hormagaunts. 

I managed to warp blast the long fangs back off the table, and the genestealers killed the wolf guard but were in turn killed by the second squad of grey hunters. Game ended up with a single grey hunter in combat with a zoanthrope over an objective. Zoanthrope had passed 7 invulnerable saves on his last wound. Ending the game in a draw.

Tactical Notes: Hormagaunts outside of synapse will normally run away after taking a couple of casualties. Also Termagants in combat with wolves will lose, made far worse by being fearless. I was losing models at twice the rate he was killing them and doing precious bugger all back. Not much else I could really have accomplished here. I could have held the genestealers in reserve to try outflanking again, then gone to ground with my army on the two objectives in my deployment zone. Trying to use the Genestealers to tie up on of his objectives. Not very Tyranid like though. 

Game 3:

Vs Chaos Space marines. Capture and Control, pitched battle.

5 x Nurgle Marines (2 x flamers, champion with combi flamer), 5 x Plague Marines (2 x Plasma gun champion), 5 x Havocs (3x heavy bolters, 1 x missile, mark of Nurgle)

After taking a round of shooting while in cover, I ran forward managing to tie up his closest squad (plasma) with my hormagaunts, the genestealers outflanked again coming in on the right side to engage the havocs. He charged his flamer squad into combat with the genestealers. At the end of these combats he had 2 blokes left from the plasma squad, facing down four genestealers, 10 termagants, and Zoanthropes. He gave up at this point.

Tactical Notes: Think I did pretty well here, holding back from his flamer range till I was i a position to get the charge off despite going through cover. While the genestealers mopped up most of his firebase. Hopefully a greater learning curve for my opponent here though. keeping away from the edge if your opponent is outflanking and not moving too far forward with your troops against Tyranids. He knew his marines could beat my Hormaguants in combat, that wasn't my intention though. I just wanted to stop them shooting for a few turns. Complete success.

(Picture By Adrian Smith, taken from GW website, used without permission)

Blog Wars !!

From the Fang, are looking at hosting a tournament amongst bloggers of the UK. I'll be game for it if it goes ahead, looks like some of the other bloggers I read on a regular basis will be as well. full details Here.

Winds of War 11

After 3 weeks hard slog at the painting table/desk the Halo marines got their outing at Winds of War, their intended debut. This is the third event I have been to that has been hosted by Bracknell Forest gamers, Winds of War 10 and Escalation 10 being the first 2. Both having been fun events that were well run and were full of great opponents.
This was the first time me and Ginge had seen are armies side by side, apart from a brief look at Ginges warthog and his low quality photos on his blog (Seriously, Ginge, would you like a camera with a macro function for your birthday?) and living 120 miles apart meant that we took our own directions with our armies. Ginge was playing his Spartan/marines as Blood Angels, I was playing mine as Space wolfs. Final results are available here.

One of the more disappointing, (although expected) things of the day was the number of Imperial Guard players there with racks of auto cannons and chimeras and Hydras. As you'll see below we faced 3 guard players. I think this is because the Guard excel quite well in these games, no other codex has access to such useful vehicles as the Hydra, or Chimeras. While still being able to cram in loads of troops and autocannons which dice up the vehicles allowed in combat patrol.

Round 1:

Vs (Chaos) Space Wolves and Imperial Guard (Thunderwolf cavalry, with 5man squad in Rhino/Guard with Chimera Spam and an artillery piece with armoured sentinel for added fun)
Capture Your Objective from the centre of the enemies deployment zone.

We lost the roll for first turn, but being an objective based game, this wasn't too much of a loss. The Space wolfs thundered forward, heading towards their objective in our deployment zone. As the game progressed Ginge repulsed the thunderwolf cavalry

and the squad in the Rhino, with a little support from my long fangs. My two razorbacks advanced towards our objective, trying to survive the hail of fire from the Imperial guard. The razorbacks were eventually destroyed. With 6 marines left in two squads of 3, moving through difficult terrain attempting to charge the 2 squads of guardsmen between them and the objective. One squad failed to reach to reach the guardsmen. Leaving 3 spacewolfs to try and carry the day against 18 guardsmen. After killing 3 or 4 on the charge the guardsmen attacked back, causing a phenomenal 7 wounds on the wolves. Of which I failed 4 armour saves. (Damn my inability to make armour saves). Ending the game in a draw.

Round 2:

Vs Combined Tyranid Force (2x2 Zoanthropes, 3x Hive guard, 26ish Hormaguants, Genestealers and Y-Genestealers)
Killpoints

This started off badly being a killpoint missions, as we had twice as many as our opponents and quite a few easy kill points in the razorbacks and landspeeders. Made even more difficult by the copious amount of line of sight blocking terrain on the table. Great for the Hive guard, not so great for our ability to tackle the hive guard though. Unfortunately for us the game started rather badly, despite putting six wounds on a squad of zoanthropes with missile launchers they just wouldn't die. Where as Ginge pouring heavy bolter fire into the hive guard also resulted in no wounds. (in total over the course of the game I put about 10 wounds on them from missiles which they failed one of). Although one of the highlights of the game had to be the Longfangs decimating about 23 of the Hormagants after they all grouped up tightly on the approach :oP. After claiming the easy killpoints of the 3 razorbacks and two landspeeders, the tyranids were left with two hive guard a zoanthrope on a single wound and a few genestealers getting beaten up by a squad of grey hunters.

With the majority of our army intact, it was annoying to have time called on us at the end of turn 5. At the end of the game we lost 5 kill points to 3, but got the majority of the victory points, an extra turn would have seen us drawing with the Tyranids I think.







Round 3:

Vs Imperial Guard and Tau combined.
Objectives (3 in our case, dawn of war deployment)

After a quick confab, our opponents decided to give us the first turn, hoping for a last turn objective grab. Ginge deployed his razorback, with combat squad and chaplain as far forward as possible. The rest of our army came on from the back first turn. The Imperial Guard player came on slowly rolling two chimeras down the road towards the middle of the table. Ginge promptly blocked these with his razorback and proceeded to play merry hell amongst the imperial guard lines. Meanwhile my two razorbacks advanced with supporting fire from the long fangs, destroying one Chimera and immobilising another. A squad of Tau suits attempted to deepstrike next to my long fangs but scattered 6" away, leaving them to rely on their burst cannons for effect.

Unfortunately for them every shot missed (that's even worse then my average shooting), and they ate missiles next turn. In a long shot to try to draw the game, our opponents attempted the move onto the centre objective, next to my squad in razorback, and tank shock through the building onto another objective. Although  this would still have lost them the game as we still had the 3rd objective. Anticipating this move, ginge had turbo boosted his speeder directly in front of the Chimera blocking his path. At this point our opponents gave up. Sensing that they would be tabled next turn, and wanted to save face. Netting us our first victory and 1000VPs.

Round 4: (The little sentinel that kept on going and the long fangs that forgot how missiles worked)
Vs Imperial guard and Space wolves (Armoured sentinels with plasma cannons and Chimera with veterans, Long fangs, skyclaws, wolf priest and grey hunters in razorback)
Kill points.

For this game, we were set-up in opposite table quarters to our team mates. We won the first turn Ginge headed towards the imperial guard player with most of his force, leaving a combat squad with missile launcher in his deployment. I sent one squad in a razorback towards The guard player, leaving the longfangs and other grey hunter squadron in razorback to try and harass the space wolf player. The Long fangs enjoyed some success early on when they hit the squadron of 3 armoured sentinels with plasma cannons. killing two off and stripping the cannon from the third. Ginge lost his speeder (Lost one, one immobilized) to the guard firepower, but proceeded to kill off the rest of the guard force in short order. Meanwhile the space wolfs had wrecked my razorback and killed off the squad inside with the skyclaws. From this point on my longfangs failed to hit anything, rolling a seemingly never ending stream of 1s'. Regardless, we had managed to kill off the enemy long fangs and razorback, leaving a grey hunter squad cowering out of sight, and the sky claws with wolf priest. Who were caught in combat with my grey hunters. I was losing combat slowly, although Ginges squad with chaplain in was nearby, ready to lend a hand. However they were stuck in combat with a shaken, stunned, weaponless, immobilized sentinel that refused to die. Totalling up kill points we came out just in the lead.

Overall we positioned 6th, with a good number of victory points for our position and not too far off the leaders.
Another enjoyable day out in BFG, thanks to the guys there for running the event. As they said at the time, this is the last time WoW is being run in it's current format, so have to wait and see what they have planned for next year.

ToEG: A Tyranid awakening

Lub-dub..

Through countless millennia, the fleet, if you could call it such, had slumbered, the creatures that the fleet composed of, dormant. Vast leviathans measuring over 5 km in length, their carapace pitted and scarred from the vast distances travelled.

Lub-dub..

Huge columns of ice formed from the creatures’ secreted resin covered its exterior. No energy was wasted during the time it had plied through the void. A solitary heartbeat was the only indication that any sign of life remained.

Lub-dub..

Through the meters thick ice that coated it, unnaturally sensitive spines had detected the gravitational pull of a nearby galaxy, and the fleet had spent the last couple of hundred years moving relentlessly towards their goal, their journey now entering its final stages.

Lub-dub..

Slowly, by human reckoning at least, the creatures heart rate increased, the gestalt consciousness of the hive mind pulling the creature from it’s slumber, synapses in its cathedral sized brain, that hadn’t been used for millennia, started to fire. Sending signals to the other, smaller, brains to wake.

Lub-dub.. Lub-dub..

Within the creature, capillary veins and tunnels, that once seemed dead, started to come to life, small pebble sized beetles, started to move. At first one, then dozens, then thousands of them were crawling through the ship, clearing away the detritus left behind from millennia of neglect.

Lub-dub.. Lub-dub..

Great chunks of ice the size of frigates were sent tumbling away into space, as muscles capable of snapping a battleship in half began to stretch and contract on the creatures’ exterior.

Lub-dub.. Lub-dub..

Within the ship a great piercing shrike echoed throughout the network of capillary veins and tunnels. Deep in the bowels of the ship, the norm queen had awakened.

Lub-dub.. Lub-dub..

The hive mind, its control of the fleet, of all such fleets, undiminished by distance, its influence slowly waking the Tyranid hive fleet. The eternal hunger to consume all biomatter, driving it to consume galaxy after galaxy, since time immemorial.

Prey was nearby.