Battle Report - Tyranids vs Space Marines

Hello!

I recently paid another visit to Stig, fellow WintersSEO and Moarhammer Patron. Last time I brought my Orks against his gloriously retro Valhallan Guardsmen, this time he decided to bring it bang up to date with a fully Primaris Space Marine force, known as the Luna Crusaders, led by Marshal Kurt Rhinehart (as seen below.) Opposing him would be the ever hungry Hive Fleet Goliath.

We played Tactical Escalation - the maelstrom mission from the main rulebook where you have a number of objectives equal to the turn number. There are also bonus points on offer for achieving objectives of a chosen type - in this case I chose the secure objective X ones (the 2s) while Stig picked Purge - the selection including Overwhelming Firepower etc. We were playing at 1750 points.

I used the Jormungandr adaptation as usual, and took a Battalion and a Spearhead:

HQ: Hive Tyrant (Warlord Trait: Insidious Threat, Relic: Miasma Cannon), Malanthrope, Old One Eye
Troops: 12 Termagants, 14 Genestealers, 9 Warriors (Deathspitters, 3 Venom Cannons), 30 Termagants (Devourers)
Heavy Support: 2 Carnifexes (Talons, Heavy Venom Cannons), Mawloc, Trygon

Stig also had a Battalion, but with two Vanguards alongside it. He was using Black Templar tactics.

HQ: Gravis Captain (Warlord Trait: Something that increased his Heroic Intervention range, Relic: Something that increased his aura range), Chaplain, 2 Lieutenants
Troops: 3x5 Intercessors
Elites: 2 Redemptor Dreadnoughts (Gatling cannons), Chapter Champion, Emperor's Champion, Ancient, 5 Reivers
Fast Attack(?): 3 Inceptors (Assault Bolters)
Heavy Support: 3 Suppressors, 5 Hellblasters

Since this was a standard rulebook mission, and I finished deploying first (both the Snakey bois started underground, along with the devourer gants, while Stig's Reivers, Inceptors and Suppressors also started off the board), I would have first turn, unless Stig seized the initiative...

As you can see if you look closely at the bottom left, Stig had first turn. He drew Supremacy, but didn't fancy moving closer to me to achieve it this turn, so just started shooting. Between the Malanthrope, the Jormungandr ability and the Spore cysts on the Carnifexes, the turn was fairly ineffectual.

In my first turn, I drew a Secure Objective card that was handily close by, so my Genestealers popped over to grab it. The rest of my force slowly moved out, taking shots at the Marines and stripping a few wounds off one of the dreads. Psychic phase was a dud, thanks to the Black Templar stratagem denying Catalyst on the Warrior blob. Thanks to the mission rules, grabbing the objective gave me two points, and first blood was still up for grabs.

Stig's turn 2, and a very interesting card draw. He picked out Priority Orders received, then the Space Marine card that requires you to wound or kill a character with one of yours. This meant the Marshal would get between 4 and 6 points for killing one of my characters!

Stig's reinforcements dropped in, opening fire (except the Reivers, who popped in at the back to deny my Trygon tunnelling up there.) The Suppressors hurt one of the fexes, while the Inceptors, combining their fire with auto-bolt rifle Intercessors, gutted the Genestealers down to 7 models - and that was with some very good saving throws from me. Elsewhere fire from the left flank killed off a few Warriors, but the right was less successful, the Carnifexes proving hard to hit and tough the damage.

Still no objectives scored for Stig, but he was sitting on a lot of potential points in his hand. I forget what I drew, but I don't think it was very good.

My turn two, moving up once more. The Hive Tyrant stayed back a bit to keep his lines of fire open, while Old One Eye and the Carnifexes moved around the generators to get some charges off. The Genestealers decided the overwatch from the Inceptors was just too scary, so went for the Intercessors.

The Mawloc popped up at the back to cause a distraction, but the Trygon stayed deep underground, waiting for a good time to strike - Stig had spread out well and denied me any good spots.

Shooting went well this turn (though psychic was again a failure after the Black Templar strat denied me again.) Venom cannons from the warriors chunked down one of the Redemptors significantly, while the Hive Tyrant killed off two of the Inceptors with the Miasma cannon.

Then things got tasty. Old One Eye charged the Aggressors (only taking one wound from 6D6 auto hits) and easily minced them for First Blood. The two Fexes charged their targets, one killing two Suppressors, while the other murdering the Emperor's Champion after I used Adrenaline Surge to fight again. Finally the Genestealers started munching through the Intercessors, but losing 3 in the process.

Stig's turn 3, and the Luna Crusaders were out for blood! Shooting finished off an injured fex, but failed to kill the Mawloc, which was important as Stig had drawn Hold the Line, and was unable to claim it this turn. In melee the warlord piled in to Old One Eye, dropping him down to 2 wounds! In response he brutally stabbed the Marshal to near death with his talons. As the light of a teleport flare enveloped his failing body, Kurt Rhinehart attacked again (using a stratagem) and slew the beast!

Double KO! With objectives held for Supremacy, we rolled for the objectives, and Stig ended the turn on 8 points! Having picked up First Blood and Slay the Warlord, I was up to 4.

Turn 3 for me. I started drawing some good cards. I think I had Overwhelming Firepower - which I achieved for D3 by killing the Redemptor, the Intercessors in front of it and the last Suppressor, and defend the middle objective that my Warriors were able to stand on. The Trygon still didn't have a great spot to come up, but it was turn 3 so he didnt have much choice. The Termagants were a bit wasted killing the one Suppressor, but this turn put me back in the game.

In Stig's turn 4, he shot some things, finally killing off the Mawloc, and sprinkling a few wounds elsewhere. I think one of his lieutenants finished off the last of the Genestealers after they had chopped up the Intercessors. He scored Hold the Line, but not much else.

Into the end game. My Warriors killed the last Inceptor, who had jumped up onto the crates to take shots down at the Hive Tyrant. The Termagants shuffled around, while the Trygon moved up and managed to charge the last Intercessor squad, killing all but one. I scored a couple of points for holding objectives, putting me one point behind.

Stig's turn 5 saw the Redemptor finally get to use it's fist and, along with the Chaplain, they felled the Trygon. Sadly for Stig, it didn't score him any points as his most achievable objective was Overwhelming Firepower, and his shooting was fairly ineffective against the Hive Tyrant (thanks to The Horror, his Hellblasters were at -2 to hit). This left him precariously placed one point ahead of me, with lots of cards to draw...

I drew a secure objective card that was easily achievable, and was able to move my Hive Tyrant into Stig's deployment zone for Linebreaker, putting me into the lead, and then securing it by getting Master the Warp. We had decided to end after turn 5, so that was that, a narrow win for Hive Fleet Goliath. Excellent game, really back and forth and could have gone either way based on the cards drawn in the last turn. Also the Marshall vs Old One Eye was an awesome moment, one of the best narratives I've seen coming out of the Maelstrom cards.

If the game had continued, I'm not sure who would have won. Stig's units on the right flank could have easily dealt with the Termagants, but the Hive Tyrant was still healthy and dangerous. I could imagine it might end up pretty much the last thing standing! I was quite impressed with the Black Templar tactics as well, their relic and stratagem are handy, and the trait to reroll charges came up a few times.

We already have plans for the next game - a prequel. The Luna Crusaders trying to eliminate the Genestealer Cult that eventually summoned Goliath to this planet!

No Surrender 2 - The Event (It's a big one)

Hello!

Last weekend I went to a function room over a pub in Tamworth to attend No Surrender 2: The Corruption. As previously mentioned, this was a narrative tournament/get together for Moarhammer patrons. I brought Nipper and da Boyz along with the intention of having a laugh and maybe getting him to survive a single game of 40k. One of those two things happened.

It's worth noting a few things before diving into a 'report'. The tournament itself was a 1250 point knock out 16 person thing, all missions were Cleanse and Capture, and there were some restrictions, such as no special characters and no use of command points for the re-roll stratagem! The dice gods will was not to be second guessed. However, around this were several other games being played out, including some Killteam on the pool table. Another quirk of the event was that we were encouraged to wear very loud shirts - in fact, I think not wearing one would cost you a victory point in each game! As a result, the room looked like this:

So game one: I was against Chris and 'his' Tyranids. (A unit of Genestealers were hiding in Scotland and he had to borrow some.) He had a Flyrant, a Broodlord, Hormagants, Rippers, those Genestealers, Trygon, Trygon Prime, Tyrannofex and a Lictor. He was running Leviathan for his Hive Fleet, which we both forgot all game, despite it being essentially the same rule as my Snakebites.

As a reminder, my army had a Warboss, Weirdboy, Nobz, Tankbustas, Trukk, 30 Sluggas, two units of 10 Shootas and Nipper, the Gargantuan Squiggoth.

Chris got first turn, moved up to the middle with the melee stuff, blasting Nipper with the Tyrannofex. The Prime/Hormagants and the Lictor started off the board. The 'stealers went for a long first turn charge but failed. I retaliated by moving the Boyz and Nobz up to take on the Genestealer/Broodlord/Tyrant blob, while Nipper moved in to chomp on a Trygon. There was much blood on both sides, but after a couple of turns I managed to clear that lot out while picking up some objectives along the way.

On Chris' turn 2, the Lictor turned up to try and assassinate Durrork the Weirdboy, while the Trygon Prime dug in in an attempt to charge Nipper (who again took heavy damage from the Tyrannofex.) The Lictor made the charge, dealing 4 wounds to the psyker, but his 6+ 'feel no pain' for being a Snakebite saved him. Importantly the Trygon failed to make it, leaving it exposed to a big angry squig...

Nipper predictably charged into the Trygon, while shoota Boyz finished off the Lictor. I failed to get the Gargantuan Squiggoth's D6 mortal wounds to activate, and with his reduced profile Nipper failed to kill the big snakey boi, who, though badly wounded, promptly killed him!

Though Nipper and many of my boyz had fallen, I was far ahead on objectived and Chris didn't have much left. Warboss Redtoof led the last of the Nobz and slugga boyz to clear up the Tyrannofex, while the Shootas did for the injured Trygon and eventually the Hormagants. This left just the Ripper swarms, who eyed up a charge on the, now one wound remaining, Warboss. They made it in, but failed to scratch through his armour, and in response Redtoof squashed most of them with his klaw, letting his pet squig eat the last of them. Victory for Da Boyz!
___

Redtoof marched through the undergrowth, surveying the battlefield. The lush jungle was slick with blood and ichor, and the only sounds that could be heard were gunfire and shouting. Though Nipper had been laid low, partially from his wounds, and partially from indigestion, this had been a success. Nothing that wasn't an Ork or a Squig was left alive.

"Dis was a gud fight lads! And plenty of meat left if yer wannit!" He bellowed, pointing at the alien gun-beast, one of the many huge corpses that now lay among the trees. As he walked he casually stepped on the dissolving body of an Ork that had been standing too close to an acid sac that ruptured as the gun-beast had died. He looked down at the still whimpering, mortally wounded form. "Run it off, yer weedy git."
___

Game 2. This time against Daniel, who was kind of the odd one out, as rather than being a Moarhammer person, he is one of the organisers of the local club that helped to supply tables, scenery etc. In other words, he was a legend, and well deserving of a special spot in the event. As an aside, at the end a battle mat and some bits were donated to his club on our behalf as a thank you, which I thought was pretty cool. Anyway, he was running a Genestealer Cult list that he had painted up specially in time for this tournament. He had: Magus, Abominant, Sanctus, Kelermorph, Biophagus, Iconward, Aberrants, Purestrains, a small unit of Acolytes, two units of Neophytes, Brood Brothers, a Ridgerunner and a Leman Russ. He was using the Bladed Cog trait.

I started moving up the board, claiming some objectives and not achieving much in the shooting phase thanks to some poor rolls, and great saves from the cultists. (The big shootas doing more damage than Nipper's Big Zzappa or Supa Lobba was a common theme of the event.)

Things got interesting when the ambushing units turned up. Genestealers charged the big mob of Orks using the Perfect Ambush stratagem, while the Aberrants and Abominant popped up among the buildings, but failed to charge Nipper. The Purestrains took down some boyz, but they didn't last long against the counter attacking Orks.

In my turn Nipper got into the Aberrants, while Redtoof charged up the wall to face down the Abominant and his big hammer. The Warboss attacked first, reducing the Abominant to a single wound. The Aberrants paid to interrupt, but whiffed enormously and only managed to deal 3 wounds to Nipper. The Abominant promptly followed their lead and failed to hit Redtoof with any of his attacks! I paid the command points to fight again, to make sure, and the Abominant went squish, earning me many points for slay the warlord and Kingslayer.

In the next turn the Sanctus popped in the stab up the Weirdboy (which he did) and the Kelermorph revealed himself to kill the Warboss (which he didn't.) Both were quickly killed by nearby Orks. The rest of the game was a race against time as my Boyz cleared up the last of the cultists while the vehicles and heavy weapons pounded on Nipper. Down to just the Leman Russ left, Daniel managed to strip the last wounds off to drop Nipper before I could tie up the tank and eventually blow it up.

Another convincing win for the Boyz, but we definitely benefited from the dice on this one.

___

Redtoof used his powerklaw to punch through the masonry and pull himself up the previously white walled building. Now, like much of the battlefield, it was covered in blood and soot. He grunted slightly as he clambered onto the roof, before clambering to his feet. A bullet wound in his left leg was leaking blood alarmingly, but it didn't seem to bother him. From here he could see the rest of the abandoned city. No sign of a mysterious orb, but plenty to show of a good fight.

"Gud wun lads! Da sneaky-squig-oomies didn't see dat coming!" Redtoof laughed, watching as his remaining boyz raised their choppas or fired their shootas into the air. Not so much meat around this time, but plenty of scrap to patch up Nipper's howdah. He looked down at his would-be assassin, a three armed creature in a cloak, now covered in blood. The creature had been hiding up here, waiting for him to come stomping through, and for a brief moment the thought occurred that he should be worried if his movements were so predictable. He didn't like to worry, so instead he picked up one of the creature's three pistols, and emptied the last of it's ammo into the thing's face. "Dat's fer ruining me trousers!"
___

Onto the semifinal. This time I was up against Kris B and his Ad Mech, featuring the Squatarii!

Photo stolen from SorcererDave

Kris was the winner of the previous No Surrender event, so he knows what he is doing. He was running Ryza AdMech and using the Vigilus detachment to recycle servitors. This would let him stack up a lot of stratagems to make his Kataphron Destroyers, of which he had six with plasma, and three with grav, really, really nasty. He took a Dominus, a Manipulus, a couple of Enginseers, the aforementioned Destroyers, four assorted Skitarii units, two Kastellan robots and a gaggle of eco-friendly regular servitors. It was, quite frankly, a scary list, and one which looked like a pretty hard counter to mine if I couldn't get in a tie up the shooty stuff fast.

As this was the semi final, there was a little twist as well. Two units of Ork boyz were placed on the board to replace two of the objectives, fighting against both of us. These represented the forces controlling the Orb, which meant we were close to our objective!

I got first turn, and moved everything forward. I wanted to use Da Jump to put the 30 man slugga boyz mob in the middle of the board to charge right in and cause problems, but there were already 10 boyz there so they would have had to go way out on a flank. Shooting, again, was pretty useless. The Boyz in the middle were annoying, so I charged Nipper and the Trukk at them. This was partially for a bit of extra movement, partially for the chance of getting a point for Blood and Guts, but mostly because I hoped I would whiff and the Boyz would stick around, locking me in combat for Kris' shooting phase. Sadly Nipper was extra hungry, dealing 5 mortal wounds on the charge and finishing the rest of the Mob with his regular attacks.

Kris responded as anticipated, powering up the plasma Servitors with stratagems and blasting 27 wounds off Nipper in one go (and that was quite a bad roll). He then finished off the big squig with overcharged plasma on the also buffed Squatarii. I knew it was coming, but it still hurt! I think my face says it all.

Photo stolen from The Claw

After that, the shooting cleared the Trukk and a good chunk of occupants, though the Nobz still hung on, looting the Trukk for extra armour.

In my turn, I used Da Jump on the big blob of Boyz, and moved up the Nobz. If I could get some big charges off, and used the fight again stratagem, I could potentially kill off the front line of Skitarii and move on to tie up several other units and make a game of it. As it turned out, the Nobz just about made it in, killing off some rangers on an objective, but the Boyz failed the charge, leaving them sitting ducks for the Kastellans.

Predictably, Boyz and Nobz died, the Weirdboy was sniped, and all I had left were a few Shoota Boyz on the left flank and Redtoof himself on the right. However, the event is called No Surrender, so we carried on playing. The Boyz had a go at shifting the Squatarii, but ultimately we brought down by the rad-saturated stunties. Redtoof tried a valiant long charge into the Plasma Servitors, eating a load of overwatch, but only managed to get into a Tech Priest Enginseer, who was promptly snipped in half. Kris formed up a firing squad, and Redtoof was incinerated. A quick game that more or less went according to the script. I needed a few bits of luck to have a chance in this one, but it didn't happen. Still enjoyable though, Kris' army has lots of cool conversions and stuff in it, so it was a good army to be beaten by.
___

Everything was going wrong. Redtoof looked around, seeing his Boyz fall in droves to unceasing firepower. Nipper had already fled the field, bleeding from many wounds and carrying a burning, white hot howdah. Snipers on a rooftop were targetting Durrork behind him, who had thrown down his precious jar of buzzer squigs as a form of smokescreen to cover his escape. There was very little that was both green and alive in sight.

"Stop bein' dead ya gits! Gerrup an fight!" An optimistic laser bolt whizzed past his ear, alerting him to one of the enemy leaders near by. By the look of him some kind of Mek with an axe. "Have I got ta do everyfing meself?" He charged in, through fire and super heated plasma from the nearby servitors. With a roar, he grasped the tech priest around the waist with his powerklaw, and snipped him clean in half, spraying blood and oil everywhere.

Durrork watched from the distance as Redtoof was enveloped in enough firepower to down a Stompa. There was nothing left, not even a pair of smoking boots. He had been removed from existence on a molecular level. Durrork grinned, fumbled in one of his pouches and produced an ork tooth of a distinctive red colouration.

"Dere is always anuvva Redtoof..."
___

In the end, Kris went on to the final to face Fordy's Orks. The two had met in the final in the last installment, and as before, in spite of intervention from Richie's Gargantuan Squiggoth; Matilda, Kris ended up winning the whole thing. The Orb was in the hands/mechadendrites of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Photo stolen from Kris B

All in all, a fabulous day. The games were great fun, and there was plenty of beer. It was awesome meeting a load of cool people from the Moarhammer discord group (that you can join by becoming a Patron...) and seeing some of the Moarhammer 'regulars' like Mr AP Burn and Mikey P. Sadly Liam wasn't there, because I had a 'gift' for him, which I was unable to deliver in person.

So a big thanks to all the awesome people that turned up, and especially those that put it all together, Filth Wizard Richie and Big Mek The Claw. And now I leave you with some more stolen photos, I think all by SorcererDave, of various other cool armies and stuff going on during the day:

Blog Post 100! - All Da Orks!

Hello!

It's the 100th post on the Blog! I thought I'd save something cool for this one - so here we have the result of Da Ork Project - All Da Orks! (So far...)

I had fun taking a whole morning to put 7000 points of Orks on a table and taking a lot of photos of them. Here are many of them, enjoy!

WAAAGH!!!