New Blog

Insane Heroism

I have decided to start a new blog, see link above for the address, this blog will have more authors, so will hopefully have a lot more content. I will be trying to cover a greater range of wargaming related subjects in this new blog.

The authors for the blog will include myself, Scotchjon (of needmoretanks.blogspot.com), and noveltyboy (of lifeandtimesofnoveltyboy.blogspot.com) also one of my colleagues Jon Cox will be writing some articles. Hopefully we will see you there

Regards

6th Edition

6th Edition

Gamesworkshop have released a teaser trailer for 6th edition:

From the date shown, I would imagine that this is the preorder date with copies arriving instore or delivered to customers on or around the 7th July.

I can't wait for this, will my hopes for 6th edition be realised or dashed. Will Land raiders finally have a place in my armies again, will my tyranids be able to last for a few turns in combat without losing loads of gaunts to fearless wounds?

Looks like we are going to find out soon enough..

Blog Wars 3 Game 2

After losing the first game by a small margin, I find myself towards the middle tables. The second scenario is based on the old 4th edition cleanse mission. With your army having to occupy table quarters. Deployment was as per the spearhead deployment type.
My opponent in this round was none other then the rebel alliance themed army of Luke Fogg (Buckaroo Mathammer). Unfortunately for me, his army was entirely outflanking, pretty much. With an astropath to assist in reserve rolls and arrival sides.

Luke won the toss for first turn and rather unsurprisingly allowed me to go first. I deployed most of my army with the exception of my two genestealer units. I ran most of my units forward to start with, though forget to fleet with my trygons. the swarmlord hung towards the right flank to tackle any reserves that came on from that side. Luke fired his chimera at a trygon and managed to score a wound.

Turn 2 and my genestealers arrive  with nothing more to do with them I moved them into cover on the left flank. I continue to move the swarmlord along the right flank while my tervigons poop some more termagants (one poops out after giving birth to a grand total of 4 termagants). I move my hive guard towards the center of the field, though being as Lukes vendettas can outrange, outshoot and out maneuver them I don't hold much hope of the achieving  anything. I move the trygons towards the left flank. On Lukes turn the majority of his army arrives, after rerolls from the astropath, all but one squad turns up on the left flank behind the genestealers. The other squad appears next to a tervigon. Lasgun fire from 3 squads tears through the genestealers leaving 1 alive. While on the right flank, the charging conscripts get savaged by the termagants in combat the survivors run down before they have a chance to flee. 

As the game progressed, It became clear that we were playing for a draw. Their was no way I was going to be able to reach his squads hiding in the far corners of the board, the only creatures I have that could have made it were the trygons, and they were removed by plasma gun fire, long before they reached there. Luke was winning bottom of turn 5 with his chimeras heavy flamer managing to scorch the termagants in his deployment quarter. Though that was the only card he had left to play offensively. By turn 6 I had units in each quarter that he wouldn't be able to shift (the swarmlord standing amid the wreckage of the chimera). Though my only hope of winning was in either the hive guard taking out his contesting valkyrie, or, the other squad of hive guard and the tervigon finishing off  stormtroopers with shooting. The tervigon failed to take out the unit the stormtroopers were hiding behind. Meaning that they would still get a cover save from the hive guard. Not that they needed it. On the other side of the board, the hive guard shot at the valkyrie, getting a single penetrating hit.... which resulted in it not being able to shoot next turn. Ah well.

So, the game ended in a draw, despite this it was an excellent game against a beautifully painted and converted army, hats of to Luke for the effort he had put into it. If I could change anything, I would have remember the FAQ a bit more with regards hitting in Initiative order in combat i.e. If the vehicle is immobilised in initiative step 4 then attacks at initiative 1 hit automatically. Also, if a valkyrie is killed with its base surrounded by enemy models, then the models inside are killed automatically, which would have made a bit of a difference. I would have also have kept a lot more models in reserve to come on in later turns from my entire table edge rather then having to move off from my deployment area. the other option would have been to just move into the center then play for 1 quarter only while contesting the others.

All told though another enjoyable game.

Blog wars 3 game 1

After a long night finishing off my Tervigon, I arrived at Maelstrom games for the third blog wars feeling a mixture of sleep deprivation, excitement and apprehension at the upcoming games. Having seen Alex and drawn a random table number, I headed over to see which army fate had decided I would be facing.

There was no other player at table 8 at the moment, just a pile of grey knights on the table behind, left unattended and staring menacingly back at me……ah, crap.

One of the very armies I dreaded facing and it looked like I would be facing them in the first round. His army consisted of the following:

Special character with bird (can’t remember his name)

2 x 9 purifiers (halberds and psycannons) rhinos

2 x dreadknight (one with the large sword, both with the mega incinerators and jump generators)

2 x pysflemen dreadnoughts (1 venerable)

4 x henchmen squads in psybacks

(sorry if I forgot anything)

Game was to be a pitched battle, kill points.

My plan was to deploy forward, using my hive guard to take out his rhinos, cast feel no pain on the trygons or the swarmlord depending on where I though the most threat would be coming from. Then move up the field hoping that shadow in the warp would prevent him getting his force weapon mojo on. I would use spawned gaunts to tie up the dreadknights in combat, where possible, then divert the swarmlord to finish them off (realistically the only unit I have capable of defeating a dreadknight). Which I thought was a fine plan/forlorn hope, until my opponent seized the initiative.

My opponent moved his rhinos and dreadknights up, the razorbacks and dreadnoughts held back. His opening salvos didn’t do an awful lot of damage, a few dead gaunts from the dreadknights and a couple of wounds on a trygon plus a dead hive guard.

I moved up trying to keep my monstrous creatures in as much cover as possible while also trying to keep my bigger gribblies covered with shadow in the warp. FNP was cast on the wounded trygon and the swarmlord unit, my hive guard tried to move as much out of sight as possible. I spawned some gaunts, however I forgot to move them (this was to cost me a trygon). My gaunts ran ahead of my trygons on both sides (this was where moving the newly spawned gaunts in front of the trygon rather than a depleted squad would have saved me). The hive guard took out one of the purifiers rhinos.

One of the dreadknights shunted to get out of swarmlords charge range, the other moved towards my trygon hiding behind the depleted squad. Concentrated fire from the grey knights took out the depleted squad of gaunts exposing my trygon to the charge. While the rest of the knights fire pattered of the swarmlord and trygon like a light summers rain, (I failed about 2-3 FNP saves in this game – Sorry Matt, I blame the new dice). The trygon was charged by the dreadknight, whose sword left 3 gaping wounds in the beast, my return attacks did jack all. Fortunately Matt failed his leadership test due to SITW. My shooting was fairly ineffective, the hive guard proving to be just out of range of the other rhino, although swarmy did manage to paroxysm the rhinoless purifiers. The dreadknight that shunted was just in charge range of my gaunts. With a little bit of luck they could hold it in combat until swarmy arrived to deliver the killing blow. The trygon was finished off by the dreadknight in combat.

The dreadknight now finshed with the trygon worked round to the tervigon at the back of my deployment lines. While the paroxysm affected purifiers ran for cover. Once again the grey knights fire pattered more or less harmlessly off my beasties, the still living trygon, took another couple of wounds I think. The dreadnight engaged with the termagants smashed a couple more, leaving 1 alive after passing it’s fearless wound (yes). The other dreadknight charged into my tervigon causing 2 wounds and taking 1 in return. My genestealers turned up on the left flank, while my surviving trygon positioned itself to charge the purifiers still in their rhino. The swarmlord moved up to show the dreadknight who the boss is. My engaged tervigon spawned another 16 gaunts. Every gaunt I had available charged into the dreadknight, about 35 all told (16 with preferred enemy). I did however forget about furious charge which would have seen me striking before the dreadknight (I think) and struck at the same time. About 25 wounds inflicted later the dreadknight was stopped his sword had impaled the tervigon though (causing about 13 gaunts to die). The swarmlord effortlessly batted the dreadknight aside, the pilot barely realising what was upon him before 4 bonesabres sliced in through his ancient suit of terminator armour. The other highlight was the genestealers at the back of the board. I had charged them into the dreadnoughts at the back with the hopes of just tying them up for a few turns, and with the multi charge hopefully damage the razorbacks. To my shock and awe though, each squad ripped through the dreadnoughts, tearing them apart in a frenzy of sixes. The trygon also took out the other purifiers rhino.

The squad of purifiers that had run for cover backed away from the swarmlord (or ran bravely towards the 2 squads of genestealers, whichever way you want to look at it). The newly transportless purifiers opened up on the trygon that had smashed their transport apart, taking its final wound. All available psybacks opened up on a squad of genestealers, leaving none alive. Other shooting saw a squad of hive guard finished off. The purifiers charged the surviving squad of genestealers killing them all for no loss. My swarmlord moved up the board towards a razorback, however he failed to reach it in combat, the hive guard wrecked another razorback.

The purifiers that had killed the genestealers held firm and opened fire at the FNPed hive guard, killing one. The other purifiers fired at the swarmlord killing one of the tyrant guard. The swarmlord charged into the squad of purifiers the remaining tyrant guard was killed, but they were stuck in combat till the end of turn 7 when the swarmlord emerged victorious. Yay, shooting cost me the final venomthrope in the grey knights turn.

With a tally up of kill points, the grey knights player was in the lead by 2 kill points, victory points were 1229 to the grey knights and 1225 to the tyranids. So a really close game and far more impressive then my last outing against grey knights. Matt was a great opponent and hopefully he enjoyed the game as well. With such a hard fought game that came pretty close to the wire at times it was hugely enjoyable.

Blog wars 3 round up

So two tournaments in two weekends is now completed.
Once again blog wars proved to be a fantastic tournament which was hugely entertaining and with some great looking armies on display.
I will try to post some battle summaries over the next few days, but suffice to say I didn't win a single game. So not that great. Although I do think that my performance was better then final tournament positions show. First game was against grey knights  :-(. Killpoints, pitched battle. I thought this was going to be quite a one sided battle. However we ended up separated by two kill points and only 4 victory points. So a loss, but a narrow one.
Second game was a cleanse mission against an outflanking imperial army. I think, given a bit more time I could have won this game. However I just couldn't quite reach all of his units to kill them. Draw.
Third game was night fight (yay) loads of objectives. Against dark elder.. (ah....crap). This game ended with a turn 5 contest by a venom allowing the dark elder player to draw. A 6th turn probably would have seen him with a few troops sitting on their last objective.

So all told, despite not winning a single game, I played against lists which would normally crack tyranids quite easily in all missions which favoured my opponents and only lost a single game. Most disappointed for me was not winning the painting. I was hoping for that. Would like to know if I actually got any votes. but oh well. Can't win them all.

Congratulations to Alex for running another great tournament and I hope I can make the fourth blog wars.

Solent tournament day 2

So with day 1 completed. I started day 2 towards the top half of the field. a solid win followed by a complete pasting then another win saw me yo-yoing up and down the leader board.

Game 4: capture and control, pitched battle.
My opponent this round was an ork army. Three battlewagons, 8 grot tanks with a grot command tank, two normal squads of boyz and a squad of hard boyz with mad doc and a warboss, and the obligatory mek with kff. 
First off, grot tanks are nasty, move 2d6, shoot twice. 5+ invulnerable.
Ork player gets first turn, does the inevitable moves everything forward as far as it will go. Shooting wounds a Tervigon. I shuffle my advance termagants back a bit to prevent them from being dethrollered. My shooting takes out the grot command tank and a grot tank. Orks move forward as far as possible again, just being out of tank shock range (hehe), mad doc gets out and charges the termagants on my objective. I lose. he spends the rest of the game sitting in the trees resisting wave after wave of spawned gaunts. while the rest of my army with the exception of 2 Trygons were dancing with deathrollers. Eventually I managed to wade through his battlewagons and get the swarmlord back to my objective. Once there the combined charge of a Tervigon, my swarmlord and guard and a squad of genestealers managed to remove them. While on his objective my two Trygons had smashed the grot tanks and eaten his squad sitting on the objective.
Game to the tyranids.

Game 5: seize ground spearhead.
So onto the final game. My opponent in this mission was the same tyranid player from the first round. So loads of infiltrating genestealers and ygmarls. This was another tit for tat game. With me setting  up to try and take the charge on expendable gaunts, then counter his genestealers. unfortunately some lucky failed Morales checks and casualty rates meant that most combats ended in my turn leaving him free to get another charge off in his turn. That and forgetting that units don't move normally on the turn they regroup cost me this game.

The games were scored on turns 5, 6 and 7 for winning and losing. My scores were as follows:

Round 1: win win win
Round 2: lose lose lose

Round 3: win draw win. Round 4 draw win win Round 5: lose draw draw. This left me 5th overall. So not too bad for my first tyranid outing. Overall an enjoyable and well run tournament. I look forward to the next one.

Blog wars tomorrow!

So with blog wars 3 imminent, 25 hours till registration. I thought it time for a painting update.
My tyranids are going quite well. Although they are still incomplete. I have less then a day to complete a Tervigon which is in bits on the painting table.

The clock is ticking....

Road to blog wars solent tournament day 1

As part of my preparation for blog wars and learning my tyranid army, this weekend i am taking part in the Solent wargamers 40K tournament. This is a 2 day 5 game tournament at 1750 points. So I am taking the same tyranid army to this and blog wars. Given that I have had one practice game with this army so far the opportunity to get 5 games in a short space of time is ideal for me.
Apologies for the lack of photos, I spent the previous night putting stacks of gaunts together so forgot to take my camera.
I shall just give a brief overview of my games so far.
Game 1 spear head kill points
My first game was against another Tyranid army consisting of 3 large squads of genestealers with broodlords, 2 small squads of y-stealers, 2 small warrior squads, a flyrant and 2 large squads of gargoyles. the game was a little tit for tat for the first few turns, taking it in turns to kill each others squads. most of the action happened in the latter stages of the game, with my swarmlord smashing his tyrant apart in combat and my trygon killing his trygon prime. His genestealers would mince a spawned squad of gaunts only to get killed in the following combat phase. eventually, my greater numbers and more numerous monstrous creatures won out in the end. at the end of turn 7 he had a lonely warrior that had fled to the back corner of the board and only survived due to the hive guard being out of range by 1/2".

Game 2: pitched battle, seize ground.
Unfortunately given my overwhelming success in the first game and the near tabling of my opponent. I was catapulted to the top of the scoreboard and would now face the beard knights (ahem, sorry grey knights). Who brought the cheesiest army he could think of (not meant as an insult, the guy made no bones about it). If I remember correctly his army was simply crowe, inquisitor (for the skulls), 3 pysflemen dreads, purgation squad and as many purifiers as he could fit in carrying titans entire stock of psycannons all mounted in rhinos. This game was pretty one sided from the start, with my critters getting cleansing flamed to death and my larger beasts just getting rended to death. Not really a lot else to say. Swarmlord beat crowe in combat though. woot.
I have learnt what i need to do to stand a better chance against this army though. So hopefully be able to do a bit better in the next encounter (not getting multicharged then cleansing flames by two squads should help (and people think flechette dischargers and nasty)

Game 3: Pitched battle, seize ground (no thats not a copy paste error)
Back to the middle tables. This game was against a blood angel army mainly in drop pods. 2 librarian dreads in pods, 1 furioso dread in a pod, 2 normal dreads, 2 librarians with small squads and a squad of death company. I deployed in a centralised part of the battlefield and filled in as much space with gaunts to prevent him podding into my lines. My hive guard performed admirably this game managing to disable most of his dreadnoughts with impunity. The swarmlord ran amok this game killing anything that came close to him. a few unfortunate rolls for my opponent left me dominating the psychic part of the game, his hoods not preventing a single power from going off. However his death company just laughed off wave after wave of preferred enemy and toxin sac furious charging gaunts being the only fly in the ointment.

So all in all not a bad day for getting some practice in with my Tyranids. With 2 wins and a lose under my belt, I'll be going into tomorrow, not far off the top of the board and facing orks. A 3 battle wagon list with lots of grot tanks. Which should be fun

A gaunting prospect.

Eek, Solent 40k tournament tomorrow. Was hoping to be able to borrow a load of gaunts for Tervigon spawning as the tournament is there colours minimum. Was not to be however.

This left me with the rather daunting prospect of taking 41 gaunts from on sprue to there colours in a night. Starting at 21:30 hours. However thanks to my mate and his speedy painting skills, mission accomplished! However, it's now 03:40 so not much sleep for tomorrow.

Blog wars 3 army list

With blog wars and the Solent tournament coming up over the next two weekends, I have been furiously painting basing and gluing bits of tyranids to myself for the past few weeks. Given another month, my 1750 point army should be just about complete...
Unfortunately I have 6 days, to get to tabletop standard and then a further 5 to get them finished. Might be having a few late nights coming up.

however I do intend to play the following list, regardless of whether I actually finish the army or not:

HQ:
Swarmlord (you love him, you hate him, you love to hate him)
2 tyrant guard
So this guy is going to be doing the heavy lifting. Massive points sink, but a beast in combat. So I hope. Should be able to deal with most other units in hand to hand, though could get torn apart by kraks easily. Also wouldn't have minded trying to get an alpha warrior instead of the second tyrant guard. But don't have the time.

Elites:
2 x hive guard
2 x hive guard
2 x venomthrope
first 2 are pretty obvious, people will be bringing tanks and I will need to break then open. I'm thinking that 3 hive guard in a squad will probably be overkill for rhino chassis vehicles. the venomthropes are a but of an oddball, and I'm not sure how well they will work but I'm hopeful. Or foolish.

Troops:
10 termagants
10 termagants
Tervigon, adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst
Tervigon, adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst
5 x genestealers
5 x genestealers
Cheap, scoring units, hard to kill scoring units that make more scoring units and outflanking scoring units. What's not to like..

heavy support:
Trygon, adrenal glands
Trygon
okay not enough points for the second set of adrenal glands on the Trygon, but still a beast. And swarlords swarm leader rule could make that redundant anyway.

So all in all a but of a mixed bag, hoping that I will manage to do alright with it. I have my first practice games scheduled for today. So I will have to see how the list performs then. Probably should have practices before submitting the list. ...

Tale of 2 Gaunts

So I am still desperately trying to get my Tyranids completed for blog wars 3. Surprisingly, it is actually going quite well. However in an effort to get my carapace patterns more uniform I have ended up with two distinctly different patterns on my Termagants. So i was wondering which one looked better?

The Problem with painting models too far apart...

The hivemind awakens and it's hungry

With winds of war finished with for this year, I've found by interest in the hobby rejuvenated. So decided to carry on with my Tyranid army. There is another tournament coming up in may which is a two day event. I intend to have my tyranids finished by this point. probably won't achieve this lofty goal. But here's 5 genestealers finished. So at least that's some progress. :-P