Khorne Flakes

  We started the month off with a battle report.  For the first time ever, I let my son use the Ultramarines and he was a tad bit excited (almost vibrating in place).  Remember that he hates my Ultramarines as I keep kicking his butt with them, but now he would be able to feel the Emprah's grace.

  I also wanted to use some Chaos dudes, especially all the Khorne daemon models that were finally built (years after being purchased).  I haven't used my Word Bearers in a while, so this was going to be interesting...

  We would be fighting over a ruined city that was bombed out decades previously again.  I was tired of the lack of levels in the Planetstrike stuff, so it was time to bring out the ruins and set up the old go-to again.  Even better, I didn't have to set up the battlefield!  My son has finally learned and, upon inspection, 'gets it' when it comes to terrain- make it even and block some line of sight across the table.  I was so proud.

The ruined battlefield

  Now that we had the battlefield all set up, it was time to pick the forces.  He chose the Ultramarines, but chose not to use the Primaris force I'd been pummeling him with.  He actually busted out my old stuff!  Led by two Captains and Tigurius, he also included Telion, a sniper Scout Squad, a couple of units of Tactical marines, a couple of units of Devastators (full squads, mind you), an Assault Squad, a couple of Dreadnoughts (the 'typical' one with Assault Cannon and the 'shooty one' with twin Lascannon and Missile Launcher), and a shooty Terminator Squad in a Crusader.  Besides wasting a goodly number of points on extra Bolter marines, this was a pretty scary list to me.

Who needs Primaris?

  My force, on the other hand, depended on our allegiance to Khorne.  The Word Bearers brought their Terminator Lord leading some Terminators, a Sorcerer leading a squad of Chaos Marines (yes, they still exist!), and a couple of blobs of Cultists (one with Autoguns and the other with brutal close-combat weapons).  Oh, and there was an Exalted Champion in there because rerolling 1's to wound never sucks with my dice rolling.  As a reward for my allegiance, the Lord of Slaughter sent me a Bloodthirster, a Bloodmaster, 3 units of Bloodletters, six Bloodcrushers (a lot of blood here...), and a Skull Cannon.  Ah yes, the amount of red hitting the table makes me happy.

Blood for the... Word?

Deployment

   So the table was set after deployment.  Oh yeah, we were playing with Hammer and Anvil deployment and the mission was Scorched Earth.  I didn't care- I'm Khorne!!!  We don't need no stinking objectives.  That being said, I totally worked at taking objectives.  We rolled for first turn and I won the roll-off.  But for the second battle in a row, my son Seized the Initiative from me.  He thought it through and decided not to take that roll.  This was after the last battle (sorry for not posting it, but even worse pics than normal) where he went first and I blew him off the table.  Another lesson learned for him!  Woohoo!

Chaos first turn, 4-0

  My first turn was simple, but very frustrating.  I rushed up my Autogun-wielding Cultists to shoot at the sniper Scouts, even casting Warptime on them with my Sorcerer and suffering a mortal wound in the process.  I summoned two of the units of the Bloodletters and suffered mortal wounds for one while using the Strategem to avoid it for the other.  I even burned some command points to put the Bloodcrushers in 'Denizens of the Warp' deep strike and brought them in behind the Crusader.  At the same time, I teleported in the Terminators with meltaguns and blasted that Crusader, spending a command point to squeeze out as much damage as I could.  When the heat fizzled, I had put eight wounds on it (not a bad start), but that would be it.  Even the Skull Cannon, buffed by the Terminator Lord, couldn't do any damage to the huge vehicle.  But no worries, I thought, I still have the charge phase!  Rolling three dice to charge with the Bloodcrushers, I still had to spend a command point to get them into combat with one of the Devastator units, only to kill four models.  FOUR MODELS!  To give you an idea of how bad the dice were for me this turn, the probability is that they would kill twice that many (19 attacks, hitting on 3's, wounding on 3's, with a -3 AP, plus another 18 attacks hitting on 3's, wounding on 3's, with a -1 AP).  The Cultists that had charged the Scouts failed to do any damage to Telion but finished off the last of the Scouts, so at least I got First Blood.  After suffering so many mortal wounds and spending so many command points only to see the dice still treat me this way... I was starting to wonder if Khorne was mad at me or something.

Ultramarine's first turn, 2-4

  Then came the Ultramarine's first turn.  They didn't do much other than advance and start killing some heretics here and there.  His Terminators disembarked from the Crusader, along with a Captain, and shot down most of my Terminators.  Then he charged them and wiped them out with just the leader without even getting to roll for Power Fists.  My armor was not strong.  Telion continued to hold his ground against the mob of Cultists, and the combat squad and Tigurius moved to support his Devastators against my Bloodcrushers, finishing off all but two (my banner brought another one back at the end- yay!).  I wasn't too scared of the Imperials yet.

Chaos turn 2, 8-2

  Now it was time to have some fun for the Chaos guys.  I shot with everything I had (admittedly, not a lot at all as I preferred blades for this battle) and failed to do much more than knock out a marine or two.  I tried to summon the last unit of Bloodletters, only to fail and suffer another mortal wound (by now, my Sorcerer was down to a single wound left and none of it was because of the enemy!) and I had nothing to cast in the Psychic Phase, so I quickly moved into the charges.  The Cultists had retreated from Telion and allowed the Bloodletters to move through the ruins and put him down (taking all the charge buffs to do it, mind you) and the Bloodthirster finally got into the Dreadnought with the Assault Cannon and the supporting Tactical Squad.  With a mighty swing, he hacked the Dreadnought in half but, in turn, was pounded by the overwatch and return attacks by the Tactical marines, bringing him down to just a couple of wounds left.  Uh oh.  The Bloodcrushers, in the meantime, tried with all their might and finally finished off the Devastators they were fighting, leaving Tigurius and his combat squad to punch them up some more.  And that was it.  I felt like I had no teeth in an army based on teeth, so I was not feeling terribly proud of my efforts up to this point.

Ultramarines turn 2, 4-8

  In return, the Ultramarines retreated from the Bloodthirster and poured tons of firepower down range, killing off a unit of Bloodletters, the Bloodthirster, and even tapping some of the Cultists.  Tigurius watched his combat squad get cut down by the Bloodcrushers and avenged them with his mighty Smite and then his Rod of Tigurius, finishing them off.  Worse, a unit of Assault marines deep struck and prepared to seek and destroy my warlord.

Chaos turn 3, 12-4

  This was my last chance and I needed to make it count.  I rushed up my marines and tried, with all the buffs of the Terminator Lord and Exalted Champion, to kill off his marines before the Assault marines got stuck into my lines, only to drop two.  That's right, two rapid-firing Plasma Guns, a Plasma Pistol, and seven rapid-firing Boltguns with rerolls of 1's all over the place resulted in two dead blue-boys.  The Skull Cannon, for the second turn in a row, decided to fail completely.  Oh boy.  I charged and even started to advance with my Bloodletters while claiming as many objectives as I could.  But it just wasn't meant to be.

Ultramarines turn 3, 5-12

  The Ultramarines simply moved the Crusader to pour firepower into all my daemons and charged up with his Assault Squad to finish off the Chaos Marines screening the Terminator Lord.  Having another Captain (his warlord, coincidentally) over there meant that my flank had completely collapsed.  The other flank saw Tigurius charging into the remaining Bloodletters, confident that he would survive and kill them off as well.  All the forces of heresy had left was a unit of Cultists and a smattering of Bloodletters to accompany the Chaos Terminator Lord, his Exalted Champion, and a Skull Cannon.  This was bad.  With that, the Word Bearers realized the Khorne was not paying any attention to them and chose to bugger out of the battle. 

  While the Word Bearers and their Khornate allies definitely racked up the points for holding objectives and killing the odd unit here and there, the Ultramarines barely suffered and still had enough firepower to kill off my force in one turn (or two, if his dice turned unlucky suddenly).  The Cursader and untouched Missile Launcher Devastator unit would easily be able to table me, added to the Assault Squad and Captain coming for my Terminator Lord and his Terminators coming for the straggling Bloodletters.  There was nothing I could do to damage them at that point and I had to concede.  Funny enough, my son still thought I won because of the score.  He forgot that a tabling or concession equals automatic victory, and that made me smile.

  I was so unimpressed with the Khorne daemon part of my army.  It took every single buff and a number of self-inflicted wounds to get them to perform anywhere near as well as I expected.  The dice were very bad and my strategy didn't pan out at all.  For that, my Word Bearers may have to switch their allegiance to Nurgle.  Or just forget about daemons altogether and focus on the marine stuff.  I also found that summoning sucks.  I suffered wounds from it, was limited on where I could place the summoned units, and found that it didn't actually make any difference.  The 'summoning bomb' is supposed to surprise the enemy, not serve them.  I wasn't happy with that part.  My son was very happy with the performance of the Ultramarines, however...

Oh well, another victory for the Imperium, even when I'm not playing them!  Maybe next time...  Until then, Happy Gaming!

Oops, we did it again...

  No, I'm not trying to bring Brittney Spears back or anything.  It's just that I caved to the pressure today.  I'm usually quite good under the pressure, that is until it's a game.  Because I like games.

  If you've kept up with my blogs, you've seen me mention that I've gotten into a couple of Kickstarters.  The crowdfunding platform gives me very little rest between charging up my credit cards because there's so many good projects.  And if it has miniatures, dice, and a somewhat-interesting concept, I'm in.  We started with Mythic Battles: Pantheon, then got some terrain for DnD from Mantic, settled on some Time of Legends: Joan of Arc, and picked up some fantastic card terrain for Necromunda.  I swore we were done getting into Kickstarters until we paid off some of the others first.

  But then the same company that did Pantheon (and a great company they are) decided to touch another nerve of mine- comic books.  If it's not Star Trek or 40k or Dungeons & Dragons, then it's comic books that build the foundation of my nerdiness.  It doesn't take much to get me excited about the page-flipping awesomeness that is good artwork and better storyline.  And if someone combines my love of miniatures gaming and comic books, well...

  In this game, called Batman: Gothic City Chronicles, players take control of Batman and/or other superheroes and fight against super villains and their thugs controlled by their less well-meaning friends. The system is similar to the Conan game produced by the same company, which uses a finite number of 'activation cubes' to perform actions or buff others.  The game is not simply a bash 'em game- there's actually scenarios and missions that require stuff like stopping bombs before they explode or finding secret stashes.  This is important because, well, bash 'em games do get boring after some time. 

  As with most Kickstarter campaigns, there are 'stretch goals' that entice more investors, and this game was no different.  They included four expansions and tons of new models (including many alternate poses for some of our favorite heroes and villains).  What got me really pumped was the expansion including the Batmobile.  I mean, who doesn't want a Batmobile!?!?  The next best treat for me was the T-Rex from the Batcave.  I have a thing for dragons and dinosaurs (even having to quickly walk through the dinosaur isle at my local Hobby Lobby because...), and a giant T-Rex?  How can I pass this up!?!?   

  Now, I do have to note that I can't just make these decisions on my own.  I'm not the breadwinner in my house and I'm also not a dumb husband, so I have to pass everything by my wife.  She controls the pocketbook and makes the bigger decisions (most of the time), so I  have to convince her as well.  That being said, she was the one that got me started on Kickstarters...

  The campaign ended today at 2pm my time (U.S. Central).  With less than ten minutes left and me still thinking about it, I logged in and found the last stretch goal- the alternate Harley Quinn.  I immediately called my wife over with the plan to show her that and convince her (she's a fan of empowered women, especially when they're holding giant swords or mallets).  As soon as my wife saw that, she fled to the office and snatched the credit card out.  It wasn't even a fight.  She looked at me and said, rather expectantly and in a resigned tone, "Go for it".  I was happy.  So was Harley Quinn!

  Now anyone that knows me personally can also tell you that I'm not a huge fan of Batman.  I am tired of the fanboys and society's habit of liking the brooding anti-hero rather than the true good guys.  I also don't think that Batman is a terribly good hero as he never, and I mean never, solves any problems.  He is much like our American congress- delaying everything over and over.  But I'm not a Batman-hater, either.  He had the best run during DC's New 52 arc (I especially loved the Court of Owls storyline early on) and his movies are undoubtedly the best (especially with Joker).  But this game came with so many goodies and such that I couldn't resist.  Plus, when this company decides to do a Justice League game in the future... (if I say it enough times, it'll come true!) 

  And regardless of whether I'm a super-fan or not of the cowled-crusader, I have to admit that he's just super-cool!  So with that all in mind, and just in the nick of time, we did it again.  We invested in yet another (highly successful) Kickstarter.  I swear, we're done until June!  I swear it!  As long as nobody else comes out and trips another nerve of mine...

Why won't they die (again!)?

  This battle is one of the major reasons that I love wargames (or hobby games for those elitists that argue semantics out there).  A week ago, my wife and son kicked off Spring Break with a Age of Sigmar battle and I was wholly surprised by the outcome.  Proof that, even with toys, appearances aren't everything and judgement needs to be withheld until the end.

  They played the Take & Hold mission from the General's Handbook (2016), which is little more than capture the flag.  I insisted that they play an objectives-based scenario because I thought that the typical 'kill 'em all' format wouldn't be a challenge and we haven't played any of the scenarios (aka 'battleplans') yet.  Very simply, each player has a 12" deployment zone from their table edge, with an objective marker centered in each.  The game continued until at least turn 3, where any player that claimed both objectives by having five models within 3" would immediately win.  If nobody had achieved such by turn 5, it came down to victory points (for those younger players, that means counting up the number of points each destroyed enemy unit costs).  Simple, just the way we like it.

The battlefield, with painted terrain- yay!

  My wife brought her undead, using the new Legions of Nagash book and following the basic allegiance (named Grand Host of Nagash).  She was really geeked about using her newly-built Bloodseeker Palanquin, so that was an auto-include for her.  She also brought a 20-group of skeleton warriors with spears, two units of Grave Guard (one had all the command in it), a Vampire Lord, a Banshee, and the obligatory Wight King.  Not too bad for only 1,000 points!

She's actually painting her force, even as I type this...

  My son decided to pull out my old Slaves to Darkness and mix in a tad of Nurgle and it ended up being a huge force.  Led by an Exalted Champion, a Sorcerer, and a Poxbringer, the force consisted of 20 Marauders with sword-and-board, two Warrior units armed the same, some Chosen, and 10 Plaguebearers.  Now I'm honestly concerned for the undead as this was a massive force for only 1,000 points.  At this point, I'm happy that we went for objectives as I'm thinking that Chaos can't possibly lose a kill 'em all-style scenario...

These are the, um, Black Legion?  Yeah, that's it...

  With forces and objectives determined, they set up gravesites, objectives, and the armies themselves.  My son wanted to put his 'hammer' to his right flank and 'swing the door' as a tactic, which the tarpit-ish units in the middle.  His idea was to simply punch his way through so one of the mob units would be able to break through and get to the undead objective.  My wife, in response, placed her big nasties to her left to counter that hammer and simply spred the rest out to force him to choose where to go.  I was impressed that they both had a plan.  Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy...

Deployment.  Chaos just looks intimidating over there!

  Forgetting about the priority system in AoS, my wife chose to take the first turn and simply rushed up.  There was little else for her to do as her magic was out of range and undead don't believe in using shooting weapons (except the forgotten Tomb Kings, but these aren't those).  Oh yeah, she left a unit of Grave Guard in the ground during deployment, and that's where they stayed.  Taking the opportunity to put some damage down, the Chosen charged the Palanquin and put five wounds on her.  Ouch!  The rest of the Chaos forces advanced and set the stage for the waved attack...

End turn 1

  To start the second turn, my wife won the priority roll, charging her Vampire and Wight King into the Chosen and continuing to advance skeletons into the woods on the right.  I wasn't sure how this would turn out, but I wasn't disappointed.  After knocking out a Chosen from her Palanquin, the Vampire Lord dispatched the rest of the Chosen with ease.  The Wight King didn't even get to swing!  How sad...
  The Chaos, not to be discouraged, charged all over the place, eager for blood.  Unfortunately, they forgot that undead don't have any.  A unit of Warriors charged the quagmire that was the vampires and suffered for it, putting little damage on either the Palanquin or Lord that wasn't healed right back up.  The Marauders charged the Grave Guard but showed why they're not favoured and watched in horror as any slain Guard were simply raised again.  And the Plaguebearers tried with all their diseased might to knock down some Skeletons, only to find themselves in an equally frustrating tarpit.
  Two things to note in this round- my wife can't seem to roll anything but 6's for her 'deathless minions' rule (making around 12 out of 15 or something like that), and the order of fights makes a huge difference as the Grave Guard attacking before the Marauders probably helped a bit.  At this point, I'm starting to wonder if Chaos has enough to get it going against the horde of undead...

End turn 2

     The third turn started with my wife, once again, winning the priority roll and taking advantage.  The Wight King got in on the action and helped the vampires kill a bunch of Warriors, the Grave Guard were blessed with 'blood feast' that saw them slaughter all but one of the Marauders.  Those Grave Guard are not to be trifled with and the surviving Marauder was wise enough to flee.  The skeletons, having their casualties resurrected, demolished the Plaguebearers they were fighting until there was less than a handful left.  Daemons are best in packs, and the Skeletons made sure there was no pack left.  And just to add insult to injury, she raised the other unit of Grave Guard near her objective to make sure that Chaos wouldn't claim it without a fight.
  Chaos, now very depleted, continued the assault and tried all they could to at least gain a moral victory by killing some of the leaders.  The Warriors continued to attack the wounded Vampire Lord only to suffer in return, and the other Warriors charged into the fray to take out the Wight King only to realize that their target wasn't as soft as they thought.  And all while the Palanquin slowly and gleefully helped kill more of them.  The Poxbringer charged the Banshee that had been busting eardrums but completely failed to damage the ethereal being, and the Plaguebearers swung and disappeared under the weight of so many spears.
  It was more than a little obvious at this point of the game that the tough Slaves to Darkness had nothing on the undead and the game was conceded.  Wow.

End turn 3 and game

  This was a learning battle for both my wife and son as we haven't played Age of Sigmar in a very long time (even I had to look up a few rules) and neither had used their armies before.  Even then, it was a terribly surprising outcome.  I honestly thought that the Chaos force would steamroll the weaker undead.  In the days of Warhammer, those two forces would not have been evenly matched.  But in the new AoS days, it appeared that the Legions of Nagash give no care to numbers.  While neither side actually captured both objectives, this battle was a tabling in the making and there was no point to playing it out (plus it was past dinner time when we ended).  My estimation to how this battle would go was wrong.  So, so wrong.

  Have you experienced a battle like this?  Tell me about it below.  Otherwise, Happy Gaming!

Battle for Benny Hill

  Every commander faces challenges that they must be prepared for.  This takes training, knowledge, and even a bit of luck.  This is just as true in real world wars as it is in wargames (hence why command officers have to go through a 'wargames academy' as part of their training), and it turned out to be the major deciding factor in this battle.

  I enlisted my son to make up a Tyranid force for a battle as I was aching for some 'verse', and he was more than happy to comply.  The first list he brought me was terrible as he still wasn't keyed into the force-building rules for 8th edition, but his second attempt was quite scary (I was proud).  It consisted of 2 battalions, giving him a huge number of command points.  Unfortunately, he forgot about those points and many other special rules that would have seen things go a bit different for him.  But that's where training and knowledge come in!  Here's what he brought:
2000 Point 'nids
Battalion (Kronos):
HQ- Prime with deathspitter and scything talons
HQ- Prime with 2 sets of scything talons
Troops- 3 units of 3 Warriors, each with 2 deathspitters, a barbed strangler, and scything talons
Troops- 1 unit of 15 Termagants
Heavy- Exocrine
Elites- 2 units of 4 Hive Guard
Battalion (Behemoth): 
HQ- Swarmlord
HQ- Broodlord
Troops- 2 units of 10 Genestealers and 1 unit of 5
Heavy- Trygon

  I brought a really harsh Ultramarine army, because who doesn't like beating a 12 year-old?  More than anything, I wanted to see how this particular army would work out, and I was disappointed insofar as the battlefield really limited what I could do.  But the army performed admirably, mostly because I have the experience to use them and some because Hellblasters are broken!!!  Here's what I brought:
2000 Point Primaris Ultramarines (that's right, I'm niche-ing a monodex army!)
Battalion: 
HQ- Capt Acheron
HQ- Primaris Librarian
Troops- 3 units of 5 intercessors, all armed with bolt rifles
Vanguard:
HQ- Primaris Lieutenant with pwr swd
HQ- Primaris Chaplain
Elite- Primaris Ancient
Elite- 4 Aggressors with flamestorm gauntlets
Elite- Redemptor Dreadnought with all the bells and plasma-based whistles
Transport- Repulsor with las-talon, twin lascannons, onslaught cannon, fragstorm, krakstorm, and an icarus missle pod
Spearhead:
HQ- Lieutenant with auto bolt rifle
Heavy- 3 units of 5 Hellblasters with plasma incinerators

  We rolled up the mission and deployment and it turned out to be the good 'ol "Kill and 12".  Excellent- I like basic.  The typical secondary objectives were in play and we'd get a victory point for every unit that we destroy.  As a training lesson for my son, he needed to understand the mission more than the killing potential of his force.  So this opportunity with a couple of pretty hard armies was a joy to me.

The battlefield before deployment:

  I have a buddy that complains at me constantly that I need more LOS-blocking terrain in our games, so I shelved the Cityfight stuff and busted out the Planetstrike terrain.  That made my son very happy because he loves that stuff.  See the Fortress of Redemption taking up the middle of the battlefield?  That blocked everything and made a huge difference in the game.  There's a reason I call this the "Battle for Benny Hill", as you'll see.   And if you don't know what I'm talking about when I mention 'Benny Hill', go here.

Deployment:

  I placed everything in a thin line across the front, making sure that there wasn't a 9" gap for his Trygon and Genestealers to sneak into.  I put my Hellblaster cohort around the bastion and then stationed the Intercessors across the line.  While I don't normally play with a wide front, I needed to show the need to account for those sneaky infiltrators and deep-strikers in the game.  My son, on the other hand, concentrated his firepower to his right, hoping to pop the Repulsor that he is deathly afraid of (it's done a number to his armies in the past) and placed the Genestealers to the opposite flank, planning on using his speed to 'close the door' on me.  Meanwhile, his Warriors took up station in the middle, having options.  The first mistake that he made was moving his Swarmlord to the Genestealer flank.  This immediately reduced the threat to me.  Had Swarmie stayed in the middle, I would have played much more cautiously.  Knowledge of thine enemy goes a long way...

  I was lucky and won the roll-off for first turn, which I was more than happy to take advantage of.  My army isn't so-called Alpha-strike, but it has the potential to be and I wanted to see how much damage it could put out.

Turn 1

  In my turn, I retreated all of my Intercessors to my left, basically running away from his fastest threat.  My Hellblasters up high and my Repulsor took aim at the Exocrine and brought it down to three wounds left.  My dreadnought put a wound on the Swarmlord, being out of range to tap the Exocrine and finish it off.  The rest of my army that could see pumped hot bolt shells and plasma into the nearest unit of Warriors and earned First Blood.
  His first turn saw him rush everything forward (he never used his Hive Command ability (or whatever it's called) to get that extra movement from Swarmie, which helped me quite a bit) except his Hive Guard and Exocrine.  With those, he punished my Repulsor, putting enough wounds on it to bring it down a level and halve its move.  Ouch!!!  Otherwise, he couldn't do much else.

Turn 2

  My second turn saw me continuing to move my army away from the flank and laying down more firepower.  The Hellblasters finished the Exocrine and the Repulsor took down another unit of Warriors.  Intercessors either dashed for the cover of the plasma cohort or climbed onto the Fortress to shoot down a number of the Termagants.  By this point, I felt like I was being cowardly, which was the smart thing to do against the xenos !
  His second turn saw some more shooting coming my way, with Hive Guard putting yet more wounds on the tank and Termagants plus warriors knocking out an Intercessor.  Those two wounds make a huge difference sometimes!   He brought in the Trygon and subsequently failed the charge and took wounds from overwatch, but another unit of Genestealers was able to make it into the Dreadnought.  Uh oh...

Turn 3

  This is the turn where things really got out of hand.  My army continued its advance away from the oncoming 'nid swarm, using the Fortress as a great blocker.  The dreadnought retreated from the Genestealers and allowed my Intercessors to gun them down, while also gunning down a couple more next to the Trygon, wounding the Trygon, and preparing for another charge.  Intercessors leapt form the fortress and attacked the gaunts, finishing them off and getting more Kill Points.  The tank continued to glide toward the shooting line and  put some firepower into the Warriors, but did nothing of note.  I figured the 13th's luck was finally running out...
  His turn was horrible.  His Hive Guard put a huge amount of firepower into the tank and brought it to one wound.  Even Warriors lending their firepower couldn't finish it off.  His Trygon and Genestealers tried to spit at and charge the Dreadnought, only to fail and take more wounds.  The Psychic Phase saw Swarmie and the Broodlord Perils and take wounds.  To make matters worse,  his Warriors charged the Intercessors that killed the 'gants and killed them down to one wound.  One wound!!!  He lost at least two victory points just from my ridiculously good saves and failed charges.  Bad turn for the 'nids... 

Turn 4

    By this turn, it was obvious that I was running away with the win.  But  I had to keep the pressure on and continued my advance.  The wounded Repulsor crept around the corner of the fortress and finished off another unit of Warriors after the Aggressors and company disembarked and flamed half of the closest Hive Guard to death.  Intercessors and surviving Hellblasters repositioned to put some firepower into the oncoming flank, and more Hellblasters crawled up the fortress walls to shoot down one of the Primes.  The dreadnought even pumped some plasma along with the Hellblasters up high to finish off the Trygon.  By this point of the game, I was simply getting more victory points.
  The Tyranids, meanwhile, charged the remaining Prime into the Hellblasters on the fortress and killed half of them and the Genestealers and Broodlord charged the dreadnought and made very short work of it (those massive scything talons are vicious!).  The best moment of the entire game was using the Hive Guard to finally take down the tank, earning his first Kill Point.  It was a moral victory for my son, but obviously too little too late.

Turn 5

   Not too much happened in this turn.  My Aggressors trundled toward the other unit of Hive Guard and punched them to death while the Chaplain and Lieutenant charged and finished off the nearest squad.  That eliminated all the firepower the Tyranids had.  Hellblasters retreated from the Prime and shot it down, and the Intercessors that were ordered to sacrifice themselves took a few Genestealers out before the charge.
   His final turn saw him move up and finish off that pesky Intercessors, but nothing else as I had wiped almost everything else out.  If this mission had been named "Exterminate", it wouldn't have been inappropriate.   I won, 16-5.

  From Turn 1 onwards, I had the Benny Hill music in my head as my army played 'run-away' from the xenos while shooting down units with excessive firepower.  I used the Fortress of Redemption as a wall to keep them from getting to me and I imagined running across the fields to escape the evil villain- like a Benny Hill episode!.  It may have been a massacre, but it was at least comical while illustrating how strategy can make all the difference.

  The advise that I offered was that he should have played in the center, with a bubble of claws in front of the back-line of guns and use his speed to cross the Fortress and prevent me from ever being able to avoid him.  I won, not because my guys were more powerful but because I stayed away from everything that was a threat (except those broken Hive Guard- so good!).  I literally outmaneuvered his Tyranids with my slightly slower Primaris forces.  More, he didn't take advantage of the Swarmlord's placement or special movement-gift rule and didn't use nearly enough strategems (while I recycled almost all of mine with ridiculously good rolls on my warlord trait).  The army list didn't suck, but his strategy and tactics weren't the best for this mission.

  No more running around for the next battle as he's been the victim of that trick now.  My son knows my army's rules almost as well as I do and is learning his (he hates Ultramarines because of the mean things I do with them), so  his knowledge is growing.  This battle was a fantastic training exercise that may come back to bite me really hard very soon.  And I can't wait for my son to be that prepared commander to meet any challenge the 'boys in blue' throw at him...

  I figured it was time for me to actually play 40k again, and it felt so good- funny, even!  How have your games been going?