Blood Angels on pest control

Mission and Deployement

  This mission gives us points for controlling objective markers in no-mans-land and the enemy deployment zone.  Our deployments were the short edges across from each other.  The Blood Angels left a unit of Sanguinary Guard in reserves and placed the other one in a flanking position on the right, while their Captain and Intercessor squad mobbed up in the middle to react in either direction.  The Tyranids placed their big gun bugs to their right and further back to take advantage of the range and cover the advance of the Psychophage.  The Termagants and Winged Prime stuffed themselves into the rest of the deployment zone, and the Von Ryan's Leapers infiltrated behind the ruins to get the jump on the golden-armoured boys.  

The pieces are set

Blood Angels' zone

Tyranids zone

Round 1

  The Tyranids won the roll-off for first turn and immediately leapt foward.  The Psychophage trundled up to threaten the middle of the field while the skittering hordes around it moved up and opened fire.  The Barbguants fired long-range and killed one of the Intercessors, being the only effective shooting against the power armour.  The Winged Prime, also known as the Terror of Vardenghast, flew up to claim one of the objectives and ordered the Leapers to assault the marines.  Following their hive-mind imperative, they dashed up and started slicing the golden Sanguinary Guard, killing one and leaving a second one with only a wound left.  The survivors struck back and killed one of the infiltrating beasts in return.  

  The Blood Angels responded in their turn by choosing the Leapers as their Oath of the Moment and ordered their own assault.  The Intercessors strode forward and shot at the big monster in the middle, causing a couple wounds with the overcharged plasma pistol.  They then charged into the Leapers to support their Sanguinary Guard brothers, only for the xenos to fight first and kill off the rest of them.  But the red-armoured marines killed off the Leapers and re-established control of their side of the battlefield.  

Round 2

  The Tyranids received five points for the Terror holding an objective in no-man's land, to start the turn.  The monstrous Psychophage led the Barbguants forward to press the Imperial deployment zone and claim the other objective in the neutral area, and then unleashed their ammo into the Intercessors, bringing down a few.  The Terror charged in, leaving his objective for the Termagants to hold, and only brought down one more marine.  But this was enough to add more victory points.  Everyone attacked back and hacked down the xenos leader.

  The Blood Angels, sensing the momentum of the Tyranids beginning to wane, moved up to engage the horde of Termagaunts and killed 16 between bullets and chainswords.  While they were busy, the other unit of Sanguinary Guard dropped from the sky in the backfield, stealing the home objective from the aliens.  They had only scored four points, falling behind in the score so far.

Round 3

  Unfortunately, the Termagants failed their battleshock test after the brutal assault and couldn't score more points for the their objective.  Worse, the Terror of Vardenghast was gone, and so the xenos army couldn't score secondary objectives either.  They still racked up five more points for the Barbgaunts' efforts, and those gun-bugs turned their attention to the freshly-arrived Sanguinary Guard but only caused a couple of wounds.  The Intercessors and original unit of golden boys easily dispatched the Termagants but watched as the Psychophage advanced to take their home objective!

  The Blood Angels were now earning points like crazy- 15 points for holding an objective in no-man's land and another in the Tyranid deployment zone!  The Sanguinary Guard that just arrived stood their ground and took shots at the Barbguants, but failed to cause any real damage.  It didn't matter, they were scoring victory points (4 more for the secondary)!  Raldeo ordered the charge of his forces into the Psychophage, which chose to overwatch his acidic breath into the rushing horde, felling another of the golden-armoured attackers.  The Captain claimed his 'finest hour' rule, but failed to cause enough damage to the monster.  Now bleeding, the beast returned the favour and chomped down one of the Intercessors.  It would have been more without the Refuse to Bend strategem.  

Round 4

  The Tyranids were able to score 15 victory points for holding the objective in no-man's land and the Blood Angels home objective.  While this gave them the lead, their hunger was not yet sated.  The Barbgaunts used their Voracious Assault to unleash their living firepower on the rear Sanguinary Guard, causing 14 wounds!  After all the armour save, one golden boy fell.  On the other side of the battlefield, the beastly Psychophage continued to fight with the mob of marines, suffering a few more wounds as it took down two more Intercessors.  

  The Blood Angels were now in a perfect position, scoring 15 more points and retaking the lead by a wide margin.  The rear Sanguinary Guard continued to hold the Tyranid home objective and duel with the Barbguants.  The fight with the Psychophage resulted in the loss of more of the Intercessors and a little damage back.  But the outcome was becoming obvious.  

Round 5

  The Tyranids only gained 5 more victory points, now being outnumbered on the Blood Angel's home objective and losing control.  The Barbguants continued their barrage on the rear Sanguinary Guard, killing another and leaving only one remaining.  But it wasn't enough, as Captain Raldeo and a single Guard finished the massive beast on their own objective.  

Conclusion

  The Blood Angels only had Captain Raldeo and two Sanguinary Guard models left on the table, while the Tyranids still had an entire unit of Barbgaunts remaining!  But the final score was Tyranids 34, Blood Angels 61- Imperial Victory!

Happy Gaming!

It's Hobby X Time!

   So...  there's a new edition of 40k, in case you didn't know.  This is the "10th edition" and is a complete overhaul from the 8-9th era.  There's a lot going on suddenly.

  Thank you for your patience as I've been away for a bit.  I'm still working hard at keeping the world (at least my local one) clean and it's been busy.  Toss on top of that a bunch of personal stuff affecting me and my circles and suddenly the hobby ends up drifting into the background.  This didn't happen with us- my son and I still played all the way through 9th edition and had the excitement of new (or returning to old) armies and the upcoming new edition.  Oh boy...

  I immediately preordered everything and double-stocked the awesome launch box because it's a bit of a deal (there's many blogs out there that break down the value and it's remarkable).  Even cooler, I found that the rulebook included in that box also had the campaign book in it!  While I have two rulebooks now, I also have two Screamer-Killers (well, my son does), two squads of Terminators, and tons more- I am a fan.  

  Unfortunately, the timing of this edition's release and this busy household didn't agree and we've only been able to play two games of 10th.  In the first game, the Ultramarines survived and executed the xenos to pull out a decisive victory.  The second game saw the Tyranids come from a gazillion points behind to eke out a win at the last second (and without using a Gambit!).  The best part of that game was the soft-quitting at the end of round three and more than 30 points behind to playing it out and winning by 2.  Those are the kinds of games that you remember (like the limping Screamer-Killer smashing into a healthy Land Raider and dying in the ensuing explosion to clear an entire objective and deny points).  

  I'm really excited to get some hobbying and gaming in with this new edition.  I dig the free and updated datacards, I really appreciate the army-building app, and I'm having fun messing up and learning a new edition even more than any other edition in the past (this one is complicated!).  Finally, I'm happy to get my Ultramarines on the tables again, and with some effectiveness [sans the Primarch] for the first time in a decade.  This is exciting!

  I hope you're having the same experience.  Let me know how you like the new edition in the comments below and Happy Gaming!

Battle for the Hive Mind

  First- I know I haven't posted in two weeks.  The only excuse I have is that my family went on vacation and I took the opportunity to spend more time at work.  The business is growing very quickly and that has led to some late nights for me (and the big wigs for sure!).  Well, the family is back and I'm reduced to normal activities, so I suddenly have time again!

  Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about our favorite game.  The new Tyranid codex was released and has spent the last few weeks at the top of nearly every tournament in the nation.  The army is really powerful, undercosted, and terribly confusing from the layers and layers of special rules and conditions.  While a veteran player may understand it all, it takes a Matrix-minded person to really conquer the ins-and-outs of this force.  My son is neither a veteran or tournie-bro, so he has fallen prey to this confusion.

  This battle took place weeks ago, but I got too busy.  In this case, I'll just include some pics and wax memories at the end... 

  Our armies set up and with the secondary objectives.  I've noted that the secondary for Tyranids are pretty bad.  I played with my Eldar and that army is a close 2nd as far as power level compared to the xenos, but with better objectives and less layers of rules to remember.

  Warp Spiders are rude with their blast weapons that demolish any horde of infantry in front of them.

  For the first time in half-a-dozen games, I actually remembered to use my Banshees.  They definitely did a number to the Genestealers.  Unfortunately, the Broodlord was having none of it and invited all his buddies in to finish off the Exarch.  Her dodginess definitely helped, but it wasn't enough with so many claws coming from so many directions.  

  By the end of the second round, the Eldar had successfully cleared half the battlefield and watched in amusement as the surviving monsters stomped forward to do some damage.   

  The concerted assaults all ended and, when the dust cleared, the 'nids had very little left and the Eldar had lost about half their forces.  But it wouldn't be enough as the pointy-ears controlled almost the whole field and stared down a Maleceptor and a couple gribblies.  

  With a resounding victory in three rounds, it was obvious that my son didn't have a strong grasp of his army and all the special rules.  Here's where things get fun.

  This last weekend, I actually read the book and used his army against his Dark Angel space marines.  This gave me the chance to show him some of the rules he wasn't using.  The first and most important was the Psychic Imperative effect.  Regardless of going first or second, the Tyranids get to choose a special effect and apply it to anyone within 6" of a synapse creature.  The Zoanthrope imperative is the best as it gives all bugs a 5+ invulnerable save (4+ if you're a synapse that doesn't already have it built in).  This would make the army very survivable, even against the world-ending firepower of the Eldar technologies.

  The other special rule that he wasn't sure of was the Synaptic Link range thing.  The ability to 'chain' psychic powers and leader effects is huge and can really impact the battle, as long as you remember to keep all your synapse creatures within 12" of each other and 6" of all the little units.  Suddenly, (unlike space marine aura bubbles), you can buff units all the way across the table and really pick-and-choose where your tactical focus is.  This is a huge and abusive rule that sets the Tyranids apart from everyone else.

  The last rule that he wasn't sure of was how to use the Maleceptor.  The blogosphere has deemed this the most broken model in the whole army and even leaked a 50-pt. increase in cost to try to balance him out.  Why?  Because the monster has the ability to wipe an entire marine unit from the boards with just mortal wounds!  Its psychic powers (and the imperative that allows him to cast and action at the same time) can be very oppresive and the model is not squishy, meaning that it will be around for some time to oppress the enemy with his brain(s).

  Now we have to play a game where he uses the Tyranids with this new understanding of how to use them.  That scares me as my victories have been based on facing a half-power army.  I'm excited to see the results.

  Thanks for keeping up even when I don't.  Happy Gaming!