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.