Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Battle for the Portal

2000 pt Battle between Chaos and Orcs


Mistakes form the last post, I checked the rules on allies and you can ally armies but not just a lord/hero choice so I wont be able to take the wizard with the Dwarf army :( Until Storm of Magic comes out....maybe...
This Battle features Orcs fighting almost the same Chaos army as last battle. In fact the Chosen warriors rolled another 12 on the eye of god table and received Divine Greatness again....He also had it against the Tomb Kings who he beat in his last game...and yes his dice were checked after...
Scenario
The scenario played this time was Battle 4 “Blood or Glory.” This scenario is a bit unusual and so worth explaining. Basically their are no victory points and the idea is to break your opponents entire army. At the begging of the battle the armies “fortitudes” are calculated. 1 pt for each standard and two points for the general, Chaos had 7 and Orcs had 6. As standards are captured or Generals are killed the fortitude is reduced. If the Fortitude reaches 2 then the whole army flees the battle. Armies also deploy 18” from each other.
Their was also one piece of magical scenery used a “Sorcerers Portal” Basically it cast a random spell each magic phase at the nearest target.






Deployment
Chaos deployed his entire army in the centre of the board, very near the portal. Apparently he wasn't worried. The Orcs also placed a fair amount of units in the centre with flanking units further out on each side. The plan for the Orcs was an envelopment. After the deployment Chaos was able to roll on the Eye of the Gods table. The resulting Divine Greatness and the fact that his General and Battle Standard were in that unit meant that I could only win if I destroyed that incredibly tough unit. On the bright side my units without standards were worth nothing to him (Giant, archers, and war machines!)









Turn 1
Once again Chaos finished deployment first but did not win the dice off and the Orcs went first. Both the Giant and Spider riders advanced beyond the sight of Chaos's flanking units. The winds of magic were light and the only spell came from the portal, it enhanced the Chosen making them both tougher and stronger :(. During shooting the Doom diver killed three knights, paying for its self in one shot! And the Rock lobber misfired :( On Chaos's turn they had a general advance with the unit on his right turning to face the Giant and what remained of the chaos knights charging the unit of Goblins to their front. The charge failed but pulled out the fanatic that was sent against the Chosen. The fanatic smashed through the Chosen and out the other side with out killing a single model :( Magic was again light and the portal cast another spell on the chosen weakening them and nullifying the previous spell. And one of the sorcerers cast a fireball on the goblins spear men killing 4.














Turn 2



The envelopment seemed to be going according to plan until all three units in the centre failed animosity and instead of holding charged into the Chaos army. Sadly as the Goblin Archers charged the Chosen they were required to release their fanatic as well. The fanatic was shoved to the right and
out of harms way until the other unit of goblins failed their animosity and charged the knights through the fanatic. This time the fanatic killed 9 goblins and caused them to panic and flee :( All was not lost as the units on the left Flank had both got into combat with the Chaos Halberds. The combination of a Giant and Goblin hoard with Warlord should have been enough.....Magic was boring again this time the portal cast fire ball on both the Chosen and Goblin Archers as they were the same distance from the portal and yup... no Chosen died but a handful of goblins did. In the shooting phase the Doom Diver finished of the Knights and the rock lobber misfired again... Time for Combat! In the battle with the Giant and the halberds the Giant was slain before being able to strike (Chaos was a little lucky, average was 4 wounds and he got 6) The goblins threw their nets over themselves and the resulting chaos meant that the Goblins lost combat but the proximity of their general and sheer numbers kept them in the fight. The unit of Big'uns mashed their opponents and sent them fleeing but they were to slow to run them down and as the Chosen rather predictably routed the archers they were able to reform instead of pursuing and line up a flank charge on the Big'uns, we will talk more about this later. On the right the goblins continued to flee but did not panic the stone thrower and the spiders closed in on Chaos's flank.Chaos' turn went rather predictably as the warriors on his right and the chosen fought and won both their combats and only the size of the Orc units kept them fighting. No spells were cast this turn.








Turn 3
The Spiders being the only unit not in combat charged both wizards. The doom divers and rock lobber missed the only un-engaged unit of warriors the only highlight is neither war machine was panicked by the flood of fleeing Goblins. Combat did not go well for the Orcs, the spider riders won but the sorcerers stood there ground and both the Big'uns and remaining Goblins fled. The only small victory was that the Orc Warboss chopped down the Chaos Lord moments before the unit he was with turn tail and then were run down by the Chosen. Surprisingly the Orcs whittled Chaos down to 3 Vps it was almost a tie.........




After the Dust settles..




Well not a particularly good outing for the Orcs, in fact one could argue that with Chaos's deployment and gift from the Gods it was impossible for them to win or even draw. The only thing that gave them a chance was the Chaos Lords Challenge other wise getting points for the Chosen or for the BSB and the Lord would have been next to impossible. Just thinking out loud here but, I think the orcs needed 168 Str 5 attacks to kill all 16 Chosen (on average), oh and they are only str 5 on the first round of combat after that they are str 4 and only have 15 attacks not including heros per round.....Ugh.
That being said I was most disappointed with the Goblins and Giant on the flank. 9 time out of ten that combat should have been mine. I was unlucky to snarl my own guys with the nets and then to have 6 wounds done to the Giant :( But the real kicker was I forgot to roll for the dead Giant to fall over, which is good for about 7 dead warriors if he falls the right way, about a 50/50 chance.
Since we are on the topic of forgetting things, the Chosen needed to make a Ld test not to pursue the Goblin Archers (Ld 9) if they failed this it would have prevented them killing my Big'uns for a turn or two. The final stupid mistake I made was having my Orc Shaman out of the boyz unit. A lot of his spells have short range and are good in close combat but he was out of range most of the game... C'est la vie.












Saturday, June 25, 2011

Venoms!

I picked up two of these kits right when they came out (have a 3rd one still in the box) and I have to say they were pretty fun to both put together and paint. One thing I was surprised about is just how many extra bits you get with it. You get two full sets of extra crew (going to paint them up for the raiders, and use some of the warrior ones on these) as well as a couple different sets of flags and spears. I WAS going paint the fellow sitting in the cockpits for these vehicles but decided at the last second to be lazy, plus I really like how my lazy-ness turned out :).





Next Up: Haemonculi!

Friday, June 24, 2011

Razorwing and Finecast!

So, as I have been on night shifts this week I have had a chance to build some of the new kits being produced by Games Workshop, namely the Razorwing Fighter and the Finecast Haemonculus.

Razorwing Fighter:

The overall look of the kit is incredible. I would have to say it is one of the nicest looking vehicle kits on the market, regardless of company (high praise I know). With that said there are some issues with the kit.

First off, the thing is a NIGHTMARE to put together. To the point where after I FINALLY finished building my first one I actually considered returning my second one for something else...ANYTHING else lol. Starting off is fine when you are gluing all the pieces to the main frame, setting everything up, etc. The nightmare part comes into play when you have to glue the top half and the bottom half together because it is SUCH a tight fit. For starters, they just don't fit very well at all, even with a heavy amount of filing down (which I did). The other big thing is you have to glue the pieces for the weapon housing and the jet engine intake valve to the top half, then line up the bottom half perfectly when gluing the two halves together. So if you haven't waited for it to 100% fully set (ie waiting like 24 hours) then every time you try to put the top half on they "pop" backwards into the model and refuse to line up properly because of the way it is designed. I am a very experienced model builder (25+ years under my belt) and after a couple of hours of work, including holding it together with 3 rubber bands this is what the bottom of my Razorwing looks like:



So, in order to get the model to go together properly you need to do 2 things:

1st) Patience. You need to glue the two jet intake vents and the weapon housing a day before you want to build the rest of the model and make 100% sure they set properly.

2nd) Get some sort of mini "vice clips" to hold those problem areas into place because rubber bands just don't do it. There is no way to get the kid of pressure needed to hold it together.

The second issue (well, not an issue, just a surprise really) is how darn SMALL the kit actually is lol. When you see pics of it online you figure it is about the same size as a Valkyrie, just sleeker. It isn't though, not even close.





Even though the underside of the kit does greatly irk me, the bottom line though is you will almost never see it, so I have to keep telling myself it isn't THAT big of a deal lol (it's difficult though haha). The other really nice thing I forgot to mention is if you are into magnetizing your kits like Greedo did with his Valk this kit is almost effortless to do that with :)

Finecast

Ah Finecast. The source of much "nerd rage" for the last couple months. I finally got my hands on my first finecast model, the new Dark Eldar Haemonculus. So here is my first hand experience with the product.

For starters the model itself is incredible. Sure, the pose looks like he is going "I AM HERE BITCHES! TIME TO START THIS PARTY!" but you quickly get over that when you start noticing all the small details that make up this model. He has two extra arms, both with wargear options which you can easily replace with Wyche arms if you don't want them. The soul cube thing which can be used for a handful of their wargear and a liquifier, which for me is the most common piece of wargear, so win! The back piece as well as the coat are also incredibly well detailed and the overall silhouette of is amazing. The model looks fantastic when thrown into a huge unit of Warriors or Wyches.

Now for the Finecast part of the model.

The Bad:

Overall I would have to say I think this model would look 100% the exact same in metal. I have the metal Urien, who is more detailed than the finecast one and when primed you can't tell which is metal and which is Finecast. The big difference though was Urien was a MILLION times easier to clean. I couldn't get over the amount of flash on the Finecast model, in some places right over important parts of detail (especially the liquifier gun). This model has the most flash of any model I have ever built, hands down. I checked all 4 Haemonculus models at the GW store to pick the best cast, and this one was by far the best one (one of the kits was even missing the extra arms lol). There was also a huge mold line down the center of the model (from side to side). I had to file off a lot of the "stitch" work on his robe as well as other smaller details on his shoulder and head. His right hand (the metal glove) was extremely messed up because of this as his fingers were horribly cast. I tried cleaning it up and ended up popping off his middle finger with just the slightest touch with the exacto knife. As you can guess the model feels very flimsy. I have read that they do have a lot of give though and are very durable, so hopefully that is the case.

The Good:

Once you get past the all the flash and shoddy casting the model itself was actually very easy to put together. You don't really need anything other then just plain old super glue to glue it together, which is an awesome change over metal where you need either pin it or use green stuff. Finecast might not be that great for smaller models, like the Haemonculus, but I could see it being amazing for larger, more difficult models to put together, like the Hive Tyrant and Hive Guard. The other really nice thing is the weight of the model. My finecast model weighs virtually nothing. It's ultra light weight and I would imagine because of this would be much more resistant to chips then it's metal counterpart.

Final Thoughts:

My personal opinion is that the ONLY reason that Finecast exists is to greatly increase Games Workshop's profit margins. That's it. Games Workshop has been talking for months about the improved quality of miniatures with this product and how nothing has ever been seen like this but I 100% just don't see it. I am actually happy I bought all my DE special characters in metal because they are flat out better casts. No contest. The other thing that is very frustrating is the price. Resin costs significantly less then metal, yet the Finecast models are INCREDIBLY expensive, especially here in Canada. I do understand that is a large investment on GW's part to switch over the molds but this could of been the perfect time to garner some good will in a time when they are jacking up all the prices of their products as well as removing the ability for certain countries to buy abroad. Consider this, Finecast models cost almost FIFTY percent MORE here then what people have to pay in the UK and the United States. As an example a box of Wracks is $33 in the states, but is $45 here...even though our dollar is worth MORE. Don't even get me started on those poor bastards in Australia lol. I honestly just can't wrap my head around it. I would be fine with it if I felt it was a vastly superior product, but just from my limited experience I would have to say that in many ways is actually inferior to pewter when you consider how much time will be spent on cleaning up these models. The only reason I haven't totally written this product off is because everything out now was sculpted with Pewter casting in mind, not Finecast, so I will wait till we see stuff specifically designed for Finecast. As it stands now though colour me un-impressed.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Ravagers!

As promised I finally finished these 3 tanks. I have to say it almost killed me finishing these as they just have soooo much detail and so many extra pieces to paint. Each one has 4 crew members. Typically a warrior will take me about 2-3 hours to paint total, so these guys I cut a lot of corners and got it down to about 3 hours for each group of 4 crew. Each tank I would say took at least 8 hours total (not including the bases as they are finished), so a lot of work went into it. THANK GOD THEY ARE DONE!...well...almost lol. I still have to figure out the design work for the red on the front of the hulls and the white free-hand symbols on the sails.





Next Up, VENOMS!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Battle for High Pass


Following is the battle report for a 2000pt battle between Dwarfs and Warriors of Tzeentch. It was fought at the Ottawa GW during their Tuesday Warhammer Night . I would also like to give the staff a quick shout out as they provided awesome scenery, arbitration on the rules, and a peanut gallery ;)

The scenario for the battle was “Battle for the Pass” and the only magical scenery used was a blood forest which was avoided all game and an enchanted tomb which provided a +1 to units armour saves if they were withing 6”(we made that one up).

Deployment
Units were deployed in accordance with the scenario deployment. The two Tzeentch Sorcerers both took their signature fireballs and I have forgotten the other spells. It didn't matter as the Dwarfs dispelled all but one fireball during the battle. Despite Chaos finishing their deployment first and the short legs of the Dwarfs. The little stunties still managed to sneak the first turn.











The Armies line up for battle.


Turn 1
The battle began with the sound of cannons!! One of them was a misfire and the other failed to wound a single Chosen but no matter that is how the battle began. The only other movement on the Dwarf side was the Thunderers who moved up to the edge of the woods. The Warriors then began a general advance across the front of their army and the winds of magic did nothing to write home about.



Turn 2
Was much the same as the first for the Dwarfs but this time a cannon found a Knight and sent him back to his god! The Dwarf made small adjustments to their line and the Thunderers in the forest were still out of range of the nearest group of warriors. Chaos continued their advance with the exception of the knights who slowed to allow the rest of the army to catch up.




Turn 3
Finally the Warriors came in range of the Thunderers in the forest who let them have it and killed 3. once again the cannons fired into the Chosen but this time those that were wounded were saved by the blessings of their God (Divine Greatness will be mentioned later). The Dwarf Lord also brought his Longbeards up in an attempt to flank any Chaos units moving from around the hill. Chaos continued their steady march forward with the Chosen edging slightly forward of the knights. The winds of magic blew stronger and forced the Runesmith to use one of his runes of spell breaking.



Chaos Warriors approach the Dwarf lines.




Turn 4
Once again the Dwarf cannons fired into the ranks of the Chosen this time killing two, not enough to panic them yet. One of the cannons also misfired and destroyed itself as well as all of its crew. The Thunderers killed another warrior in the unit apposing them. Sensing the time was right the Chaos Lord lead his Chosen Warriors against the Dwarf Thunderers who chose discretion over valour and fled back through the woods. The Chaos Knights also moved up to stay along side these mighty warriors. Finally the winds of magic blew strong and the wizards were able to cast Fireball on the Dwarf Warriors killing 4 of them. The battle was shifting to Chaos.




Turn 5
Sensing the battle swaying to Chaos the Dwarf Lord ordered his Longbeards against the knights. The Knights put up a good fight wounding 8 but the Dwarf armour was strong and saved all but three warriors. The knights did not fair so well as the Dwarf Lord cut down three single handily and his remaining Longbeards finished of the last one. Seeing the destruction of the Knights the Chosen lead by their Lord charged into the remaining Longbeards (they could just see them, it is not shown well in the diagram) and declaring a challenge against the Dwarf Lord. The Longbeards lost combat but having more ranks kept them from running. In the duel the Chaos lord scored only a single wound against the Dwarf lord. Other then this combat the Thunderers and cannon killed a few more warriors and no spells were cast.




Turn 6
The Slayers declared a charge against the Chosen but only rolled a 3 on the charge dice so stumbled forward out of the woods and into the front of the oncoming warriors. There was more shooting from the Thunderers and the cannons this time the thunderers managed to kill a Sorcerer who still had not joined a unit for protection. The battle with the Longbeards was not going well and it was only the presence of the Battle Standard that kept them going. The Dwarf lord however managed a wound on the Chaos Lord this turn, a very close fight.
In Chaos's last turn both units of Warriors charged into the Slayers managing to just squeak into the Thunderers as well. This battle was a massacre and sent the Thunderers fleeing but a few slayer remained behind to die (later) and denied the warriors a chance to pursue and finish the thunderers. The battle between the Chosen and Longbeards finally came to an end as the Longbeards broke and ran. Strangely they out ran the Chosen and so remained alive and denied Chaos of any victory points for them.
Even though Chaos was driving the Dwarfs from the field they only managed 100pts ish for the cannon and was not enough to match the 400+ points for the knights and sorcerer. The Dwarfs had won the day.





As the sun sets the Dwarfs areseen fleeing (regrouping) from the field of battle :(



After the Dust Settles..


I am by no means a veteran of Warhammer as I am learning new rules every game but here are a few lessons I learned from the battle;


Deployment, deployment was fairly standard after the battle we all agreed that the knights would have been better on the other flank and have the three Chaos infantry units march a breast down the battle field.


Flow of the battle, generally Chaos was too timid, the fact that you might not make a charge is not a reason not to try especially when your close combat power is so much greater. Basically charging is not as awesome as it was in 7th. Also by the time we did get into combat there wasn't the opportunity to finish off the units that were beaten in combat.


The Chosen Warriors rolled Divine Greatness on the Eye of Chaos, this made them suborn with a 3+ ward save in addition to their normal armour save :( For those of you that play more 40k he might as well have replaced the unit with a squad of Thousand Sons. Since my army was without any Lascannons this unit became effectively un-kill-able. The only thing that saved me was that they didn't start fighting until turn 5.


Knights, What to do with expensive cavalry in 8th ed? The only Cavalry that can hope to break a large unit of infantry on the charge are Bretonian (3 guys to a rank) or perhaps cheaper knights like Empire. Their 7th ed role as line breakers has disappeared. It seems in 8th expensive knights can be used effectively to run down routed units when they fight in conjunction with a unit of infantry. The infantry remove the stubbornness of the apposing unit and then the knights can run them down. What ever the case they are no longer the one hit wonders of old.


The Slayers unbreakable rule can be very useful, especially in the last few turns of the game. The fact that they prevented the warriors running down the Thunderers prevented the game going to a draw. I think great advantages can be made by having small units of slayers that are deeper then they are wide (frontage of two or three) and are able to stand up to several rounds of fighting even in the face of a hoard.


Magic, Well what can I say, he only got off one spell. I am thinking of getting an allied Empire Wizard, that combined with the Runesmith and rune of Vallya will give me a stomping magic phase.


Anyway, I have spent enough time writing this, please let me know what other lessons you drew from the battle or what I got completely wrong.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The Great Devourer Descends on Red Deer!

Over the weekend I participated in only my second tournament this year. I missed out on all the big events at the beginning of the year because of work. My wife is giving birth to our first child next month so I am trying to cram in some gamin’ action while I can. I know I said I wasn’t going to be taking the “mighty” Tyranids to another event, but alas, I just couldn’t get the Dark Eldar up and running in time, so bugs it is.

The Tournament in Red Deer was being run by a gaming group called “Da Grots”. I have seen a couple of their members at some of the events in Calgary, but by and large, I know almost none of them. I therefore thought it would be a good chance to get in some games against people I have never played before. The tournament was a standard 3 game format, each game being a combination of missions and deployments from the main rule book (so standard stuff). Despite only being 10 people at this tournament there was a really wide variety of armies. There were 2 Nids, 2 Imperial Guard, 2 Space Marines, 1 Necron, 1 Ork, 1 Tau and 1 Demon. So almost all the armies were represented. There were supposed to be a couple more but I think there were some no shows.

The Tyranid List:

HQ

Tyranid Prime – Dual Boneswords, Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands

Elites

Venomthropes (2)
Hive Guard (3)
Zoanthropes (3)

Troops

Termagants (20)
Tervigon – Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst
Hormagaunts (25) – Toxin Sacs
Genestealers (5) – Toxin Sacs, Broodlord Upgrade (BL – Scything Talons)
Genestealers (5) – Toxin Sacs, Broodlord Upgrade

Heavy Support

Mawloc
Mawloc
Trygon – Adrenal Glands

Total Points – 1849pts

Game 1: Capture and Control, Dawn of War vs. Blood Angels

Let me start off by saying that this game actually shouldn’t have taken place. What I mean by that is my opponent was a 13 year old kid with a barely painted army who couldn’t grasp the basic mechanics of the game, let alone enough to play in an actual tournament. Before we even set up I knew the game wasn’t going to be close. He placed his objective in a building, fairly close to the center of the board and I placed mine on the complete opposite side in a crater. Since he won first turn he combat squaded the Tact Squad in the building with the objective, placed his Chaplain on a Bike in the middle of the board on the center line and infiltrated his scout squad about 13” from my board edge. Everything else came in on turn 1 except Astorath and the DC which he opted to deep strike. I in turn just held my entire army off the board to walk on turn 1. Here is Nick’s list:

HQ

Chaplain on a Bike
Astorath

Elites

Sanguinary Priests (2) – Power Weapons, Combi-Meltas
Furioso Dread – Dread CC weapon, heavy flamer, scatter cannon (or whatever it’s called lol)

Troops

Tactical Squad (10) – Missile Launcher, Flamer, Power Fist
Scout Squad (5) – Sniper Rifles
Death Company (5) – Assortment of power weapons, thunder hammers, inferno pistols, etc… (basically everything you could give them…it was crazy how much this squad cost)

Fast Attack

Baal Pred – Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter Side Sponsons
Scout Bike Squadron

Heavy Support

Predator – Autocannon Turret, Las Cannon side sponsons



High Points:

- The game lasted 45mins of the 2 hour allotted time.

Low Points:

Sigh, where to begin?
- I knew Nick would only focus on killing me, so I brought out the 20 strong squad of Termagants onto my own objective and sent 1750pts worth of Tyranids at his objective.
- Nick decided to deep strike his death company squad 6” from 1450pts worth of Tyranids which were wiped out to a man the following turn after being charged by a Trygon, 25 untouched hormagaunts with Catalyst and 12 Termagants I spawned (as this is all I could fit in base to base)
- The one stealer squad wiped out the Scouts turn 1
- By turn 3 almost my entire army had swamped his objective and the only kill point he managed was killing 2 Venomthropes because I couldn’t make a saving throw to save my life





Final Result: Tyranid Victory. I held both objectives and killed him to a man by the bottom of turn 3. This is the type of game that just shouldn’t happen in a tournament. Nobody has fun when one person gets trounced especially to this degree. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Nick had any concept of what was actually happening, but alas he didn’t. He just seemed confused at every point and was flustered even by the concept of rolling dice. I would have to say it was easily one of the worst games I have had in a tournament as it was literally a “bye” to the next round.

Game 2: Kill Points, Spear Head vs. Sons of Medusa (aka Space Marines)

This game was against my good friend Jon Wong and his optically devastating Sons of Medusa. I knew what was in his army before hand as we had been sending lists back and forth so I knew that this was maybe the worst combination of missions and deployment as Jon has nothing by long ranged anti tank firepower. Jon set up his parking lot/gun line in a line about 15”-20” away from the center while I set up everything but the two infiltrating stealer squads and the Trygon as close to the center of the board as possible. I knew Jon had an ultra death Sternguard squad with 8 combi meltas so I was trying to figure out how to have my Tervigon live past turn 1. I noticed I had a building with no windows or doors, so no line of sight, so that is where he was set up. I then infiltrated my stealers closer to the back side of his army, 18” away where if Jon wanted to shoot at me he would HAVE to shoot through cover. Jon gave me first turn so off I went!

Sons of Medusa

HQ

Lysander

Elites

Sternguard (10) – 8 Combi Meltas, Sergent w/ Powerfist, Drop Pod
Dreadnought – Auto Cannon
Dreadnought – Plasma Cannon

Troops

Tactical Squad (10) – Melta Gun, Missile Launcher, Serg w/ Power Fist, Rhino
Tactical Squad (5) – Melta Gun, Razorback w/ Twin Linked Las Cannons
Scout Squad (5) – Just CC weapons I think

Heavy Support

Land Raider – Chronos Upgrade (so BS 5)
Predator – Autocannon Turret, Las Cannon Sponsons
Predator – Autocannon Turret, Las Cannon Sponsons



High Points:

- The Genestealers were Ace this game. The first squad managed to fleet 6” the first turn, reaching cover and being very much in charge range to the battle line for turn 2 (which it did, wrecking one of the predators). The other squad took a full round of shooting from the stern guard using “Bolter Drill” from Lysander (ie re-rolls all misses) and they used the “Ignore Cover” ammunition. The Broodlord was all that was left with full wounds.
- The Hive Guard just had their way with Jon’s battle line. Every time they shot something died…every…time.
- Mawlocs wrecked havoc on the parking lot, sending tanks in multiple directions, immobilizing one of the preds and just getting in Jon’s face.

Low Points:

Well, all these belong to Jon lol
- The previous game for Jon was against a Necron army with THREE Monoliths. Chronos by himself wrecked 2 and immobilized one lol. So, naturally, this game he missed 3 of the 4 shots in the first two rounds (this is on a 2+ with a re-roll)
- That luck continued for the first round as I either saved all incoming shots (Zoans never failed a save, took about 6 or 7 of them from Las Cannons) or he just flat out missed.
- I think the biggest one was how he deployed his Sternguard Squad. He was far too aggressive with his deployment of them, trying to force them into place to kill a high priority target on turn 1. He shot at the one stealer squad which just due to the nature of the 5 man unit is virtually impossible to kill with that squad (on average you need to do THIRTY wounds to kill the 5 guys, I will explain later :). He should have either deep struck the squad BEHIND my lines in hopes of killing the Hive Guard or deployed them in his battle line to help defend against things like the Mawlocs or Trygons.





Final Result: Tyranid Victory. By the time the Trygon came up on turn 3 Lysander and the Sternguard were almost dead and only the tact squad, Chronos and one of the Predators were still functional. I still had almost my entire army so Jon just conceded (but not before we figured out how long Lysander could last lol). Overall it was a fun game, Jon was a great guy to play against and took everything in stride, and when stuff goes wrong, dice wise, it can be difficult to do lol.

Game 3: Seize Ground (5 Objectives), Pitched Battle vs. Tyranids

This game was against the OTHER Tyranid player in the tournament. I thought it was pretty cool that at this point the only two armies that went 2-0 were Tyranids. Tyler’s army was awesome. It was perfectly designed to take on imperial armies with a combination of lots of bodies and massive toughness. His was the army I knew would give me the hardest time. He has significantly more toughness then I did (including a 700pts Deathstar Squad and a Tyrannofex) and my Mawlocs are almost useless against him. It was 5 objectives which was good as my stealers really gave me an edge. I knew the only path to victory was side step and bait his Hive Tyrant Death Star while putting all my focus on killing all his troops (killed 8 units of troops by the end of the game lol) and try to outlast him.

Tylers List:

HQ

Hive Tyrant – Bonesword, Lashwhip, Venom Cannon, Old Adversary, Regen
Tyrant Guard (3) – Lash Whips
Tyranid Prime – Dual Boneswords, Regen

Elites

Hive Guard (3)
Hive Guard (3)

Troops

Termagants (10)
Termagants (10)
Tervigon – toxin sacs, adrenal glands, catalyst
Tervigon – toxin sacs, adrenal glands, catalyst

Fast Attack

Gargoyles (27) – Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands

Heavy Support

Tyrannofex – Rupture Cannon

High Points:

- Genestealers won me this game. I infiltrated both squads, one of which was on one of the objectives in his deployment zone which was on a high bastion tower. There was physically no way he could get up there so the squad just went to ground the whole game for a 2+ cover save basically eating up 5 full turns of shooting from 6 hive guard. The other squad I botched their deployment and they served as a speed bump for the Gargoyles (but, making them take tonnes of dangerous terrain rolls).
- Trygon earned his keep. He killed a squad of Termagants , a Tervigon and a squad of Hive Guard by the time the game ended
- Tyranid Prime did extremely well this game. He “bonesworded” a Tyrannofex and then a turn later “bonesworded” the last remaining Tervigon which was Tyler’s last troop unit

Low Points:

- I had the perfect placement for my second unit of infiltrating Genestealers then at the last second I doubted myself and moved them to a spot where they were just devoured by Gargoyles. I think if I had left them where they were it would have been a much quicker game
- My Zoans did virtually nothing this game. I killed a couple termagants, did a wound to a Tervigon, then they took 5 impaler cannon hits failing every single one
- I miss-placed a unit of spawned termagants which ended up opening a lane for Tyler to engage my Tervigon with his own Termagants. I thought this was going to be the end but due to some inspiring rolling from my tervigon I ended up fighting off the Termagant swarm.









Final Result: Tyranid (mine) Victory. The game ended on turn 5 with me holding two objectives to Tyler’s zero (he had no troops left at this point). Overall I played this game very well using my Mawlocs to distract the Deathstar away from my own objectives and I had a great use of counter attacks with my different units. The biggest thing is I ONLY attacked his troop units while he spread his focus too thin on my supporting units that didn’t matter. I think this game also helped me prove two of my opinions on this army. 1) Tyrannofex’s suuuuck lol. He killed virtually nothing and got chopped to bits by my Tyranid Prime (so a 100pt model killed a 265pt model in cc). 2) Venom Cannon’s are the biggest waste of points on a Tyrant. Tyler spent most of the game shooting me with the Venom Cannon instead of running his insane close combat unit forward. This one thing more than any other won me the game as it left his Tyrant too far away to effect the game.

Final Tournament Standing: First Overall, Best Painted. I won every single category I could (since it was just most games won and best painted). It was one of the most dominating outings this army has had to date.

Army Thoughts: The list worked incredibly well as it was very flexible. It just feels like the most complete army I have brought to a tournament to date. 5 scoring units really helps as well. The biggest thing though is this army is FUN to play. Lots of interesting units and massive synergy.The only things I would change might be switching the Mawlocs to Trygons. That’s about it. The one group of units that surprised me the most were the min sized Genestealer Squads with the Broodlord. These squads are incredible. They have two main things going for them.

1) They are so small they can infiltrate virtually anywhere. The only reason I won that last game is because the squad was just small enough to infiltrate out of sight onto an objective.
2) Due to their small size they get forgotten and aren’t a priority target. This happened almost every game. Against Marine armies this squad is very deadly. They still get 17 WS6-7 attacks on the charge that re-roll virtually all wounds with rending. You end up getting something like 3-4 rends on the charge. They can threaten vehicles and small units alike. I love them lol

Tournament Thoughts: I am going to go on kind of “Rant” so bare with me here lol. When I first signed up for this Tournament the poster with all the information on it said “Prizes for first place, second place, third place, best painted and best sport”. So I figured I would at least have a shot at best painted and best overall. After driving an hour and a half to the event I ended up talking with one of the guys that runs the game club and he informed me that “In order to make sure people don’t bring ‘Leaf Blower’ type lists we are just going to ‘randomly’ give out the prizes”. This made me do a bit of a double take as it meant there is no reason to do pretty much anything. Nothing the players did had any impact on what would happen through the day. It transformed the event from a tournament to a club game day. I also thought since if the organizers were so worried about this type of thing that they would have had some sort of comp score or have other soft scores impact the final overall score (like painting, sports, etc.). The “Tournament’s” only scoring method was through battle points. So they wanted a soft score type tournament when they set it up to be Ard Boyz.

Another strange thing was after the first round the fellow running the event called my name out for best painted, but then called another guy’s name as well to come get a prize (with NO indication of what he might of won). So he got there first, getting the prize I wanted so I ended up getting stuck with a box of Wyches (which was the worst prize there). There was no more mention of prizes and I figured they would do the “draw” after the last game but once I finished my last game I noticed everyone already had their prizes. The thing that REALLY bothered me was they just gave out the prizes to their own members with no “random draw” at all (nether Jon nor I received any of these “random” prizes). So the first kid I played (who plays blood angels) got a Storm Raven, and so on. The prizes ranged from a Space Wolf Battle Force (the best prize, who was “won” by someone playing IG who came in the middle of the pack) to a box of Wyches (the worst prize). If I am speaking honestly I felt cheated and I felt that it was under handed to just change everything about the tournament on the day of the event to better benefit your own members. If they wanted a “Members Only” event then they should have put that on the poster. Another great thing is that I had to pay an EXTRA $10 over everyone else just to participate. Sigh lol.

One thing I wanted to ask is how would you guys feel if you travelled 150kms to an event to have everything about it changed (very much not in your favor)? Am I over reacting as far as being “irked” over how things went down? I would love to hear from you guys