For the first time in forever...wait, wrong franchise! The sentiment is accurate, though. The nobles of the Lahker Dynasty, Nahz, Rynkelyh, the Ref-tek, and Nemesor Zahndrekh himself got together and formed their first 7E Royal Court. This time, they would take to the field as part of the Decurion detachment, including a Reclamation Legion and Judicator Battalion. Zahndrekh was my Warlord, with his new ability to switch his Warlord trait every turn after the first turn.
My opponent was Charles, the mission Contact Lost, the deployment Vanguard Strike. We placed objectives, him putting them in the center, me putting them towards the table edges, and I won the deployment roll-off. I had seen his army beforehand, it had a load of the little creatures, two Hive Tyrants with wings and twin-linked devourers (oh great), and a pair of Tyrannocyte spores. Hmm. Once more, I squished my allied Marines into one corner, and put everyone else in a nice compact gunline. A gunline more compact and template/blast-vulnerable than I would like. Come the Apocalypse allies are kind of a bitch.
 |
| "Yes, my personal space bubble is THIS big! You got a problem with that?" |
At the very least, my infantry wasn't hanging out in the breeze like they had in previous games. As long as the threats appeared to the front, and not the sides, rear, above, and below, I predicted success. Charles set up his Tyranid warrior brood in cover, with his Zoanthropes and Tyrannofex out front.
Turn 1
Charles stole the initiative. Sneaky 'nids. He put his advantage to use and moved everything up, what there was to move up. Most of his army was stationed in space, prepared for multiple, simultaneous, devastating, redundant deep-strikes. Raveners, Tyrannocyte spores, flyrants, oh my, and oh crap. At least they didn't come in turn 1, like certain power-armored armies one could easily name.
 |
| Bald Zoanthrope is bald. |
In Contact Lost, you could only generate as many tactical objectives as you currently held. I preferred this mission to the last one, it gave me a few goals to achieve and didn't overwhelm me with options. (We did forget to generate them a few times, though.) I rolled Kingslayer for my first objective, which was at the moment useless, since the enemy Warlord (painted flyrant) was off the field.
Not much happened turn 1, I killed a Zoey, my drop pod landed, and the Librarian squad did squat to the Tyrannofex. The melta almost took a wound off, but I had failed to account for the Venomthrope nearby, and the 'fex made his cover save.
 |
| "Venomthrope Farts, Averts Melta Catastrophe" |
Turn 2
Turn 2, the Ravener blob and Tyrannocyte spore with the 20 devourer-wielding Termagants arrived. Raveners exploded up on one side of my CCB, spore came down on the other. This all seemed disturbingly similar to my last game, with the caveat that the foe was landing in front of me, instead of all around.
Turn 2 shooting, Charles' remaining Zoey took a psychic potshot at my CCB. Overlord Rynkelyh went man-mode, took it on his invuln-shielded pauldron, and rolled a 2. And then a 1 for his RP.
CCB went poof, one member of the Royal Court was gone, and one-third of my melee shield gone. Curses.
 |
| "I've got this, guys, I've got this!" |
 |
| "Really, I've got...oh crap." |
The Tyrannocyte spore turned out to be four times nastier than a drop pod. Those guns on its crown weren't just for show, they put out 5 S6 AP4 small blasts per turn. Coupled with the nasty torrent flamer from the Tyrannofex, my warriors began to feel the pain. Termagants put out a butt-ton of firepower with their devourers, paring an Immortal squad down to one Immortal and Lord Nahz.
 |
| That's a lot of Devourer dice. |
Raveners threw out a load of dice from their nipple-guns (Charles' term, and yes I snickered), and yet my warriors kept up the armor saves and RP rolls. (Decurion is totally worth it.) The Librarian squad got locked in combat by the warrior brood, and only some lucky rolls, the Shield Eternal, and Iron Hands FNP 6+ saved them. The flyrants arrived and started picking off Praetorians near Objective 6 with their Deathspitters. Librarian and warriors continued to fight, Librarian making some crazy-good saves with the Shield Eternal and FNP.
My turn, I punched back. The Dev squad did better this game, they took a few wounds off the spore and would later on take a few off the Tyrannofex. I moved my warriors up, rapid fired, many Ravengers and almost all 'gants died, yay. I had Zandy switch his warlord trait to one that gave him and everyone within 12" To Hit rerolls of 1 in CC. And then, of course, I decided assaulting those 3 'gants would be too much trouble. I would regret that later. The Tomb Blades goofed around in center field, gibbed the remaining Zoey. Praetorians assaulted the Raveners, managed to lay a few wounds down, but were definitely at the disadvantages fighting 3-wound-multiple-attack-Rending-Fearless creatures.
 |
| The Tyrannofex's base magnet captures the tape measure for a moment. |
Turn 3
Charles' flyrants flew around and were royal nuisances. Toxin was spewed, more warriors died, I finally remembered the Ark's repair function. The spore laid its blasts on Zandy's squad, they took many hits, rolled morale, OH NO 11! How far did they run? 9 inches to the table edge 8 inches away. Dammit Zandy. (Maybe if I'd assaulted those 3 'gants, then Zandy wouldn't have dashed off the board, and taken my army's morale support with him.)
 |
| SON I AM DISAPPOINT |
Tyrannofex continued to lumber around, soaked up the shots that came his way, and did damage.
Turn 4
Around this time my memory started getting fuzzy, there was so much to keep track of. Lord Nahz finally killed the first Tyrannocyte, and no sooner had he done so, the second one dropped in, and let the Toxicrene loose. For some reason, my Tomb Blades didn't immediately skedaddle for the other side of the board, that doomed them. The Praetorians held on till the end of this turn, I think, the Raveners finally overwhelmed them.
The Librarian and his squad finally ran out of luck, and the weary Tyranid warriors cleared them form the field and wandered towards my remaining forces.
 |
| *agonized terrified text spamming in binary* |
Turn 5
The Toxicrene charged into my Tomb Blades, they died a horrible, tentacle-y, Cthulu-themed death. The unpainted Flyrant flew over within range of my Dev squad, hit them with its Deathspitters, and I failed five 3+ saves. Derp. Lord Nahz attempted to repeat his earlier success on the second spore, and it, being a monstrous creature, socked an AP2 hit to him and killed him.
My Stalker got a snap-shot hit on the painted flyrant, he failed his grounding test and bit the dust for 1 wound. Realizing his foe was shooty and not choppy, the Stalker assaulted with the last Immortals, locked the flyrant in combat. My Ark picked up the remaining warriors and headed for the enemy board edge, trying to get Line Breaker.
The finishing time rolled around at this point, and the game ended. Charles won 3 VP to my 2 VP. Both my Ghost Ark and Stalker survived, a pleasant consolation prize for the defeat.
 |
| Game end. |
I believe my list was good, and that it was a couple erroneous decisions (not assaulting with Zandy, not running the Tomb Blades away) on my part that cost me the game. Other gaffes included me forgetting my Cryptek: I shelled out 90 points for him and his Chronometron, and then forgot about him the whole game. Well done, Gabe, well done. Meanwhile I forgot completely about Zandy and his switch-warlord-trait ability, and the Ghost Ark. Repair warriors? Wats dat?
Lessons learned: never, ever leave the Wraiths at home, and glance at your army list, just so you know what useful gubbins your guys have.
Thanks to Charles for a good game. Nice paint job on the big 'nids, especially the Toxicrene.
 |
| "How do I feel about this victory for the swarm? All right, foe was too crunchy, needed more ketchup." |
No comments:
Post a Comment