Narrative Wargamer Video Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus vs Orks

Hello!

It's been a while since I've been able to talk about being in a video battle report, but here we are again. This time though it's also something a bit new, because this is the first ever Narrative Wargamer battle report! As you may know, I've been appearing on the Narrative Wargamer Podcast alongside Tony and others on and off for a while now, so I was pleased to be involved as Tony is branching out into video content on YouTube. So here it is, our first report, obviously it's a narrative play game and as the title suggests, it's my AdMech (and Knight) vs Deathskull Orks:

As this is the first one, we'd love to get a load of feedback if possible! (And the classic like and subscribe...) That said, if you click and check it out expecting some pretty basic video of two sweaty dudes (it was a hot day!) mumbling over a game of Warhammer, you might be surprised. Tony has thrown a lot of effort into editing this one and personally I think it looks pretty slick. The first thing you'll see after the intro graphics is a 'briefing cut scene' to explain the situation, narrated by the talented RJ Bayley, and this will continue throughout with little narrative snippets during the game. While there's still plenty of room for improvement, it feels like we're hitting the ground running with something that takes good ideas from plenty of other YouTube battle reports, but puts the Narrative Wargamer spin on it. Hopefully there will be plenty more coming in the future!

Anyway, I really hope you check out and enjoy the video. Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.

Grim Dice 40k Tournament Report (July 22) - Behemoth Tyranids

Hello!

Another Grim Dice 2000 point 40k tournament, the last with the Nachmund rules before we move over to Nephilim. Importantly all the big changes, points, balance dataslate and the new mission pack itself, were released after the two week cut off point for allowable publications for this event, so it really seemed rude not to use Tyranids...

That said, my collection doesn't contain the stuff that got hit the hardest so my list only went up by about 80 points after Battlescribe updated (I'd heard of people who lost about 400 points!). I modified the list I took last time (which went 3-0) to include some Carnifexes and Old One Eye after they proved brutal vs some Nurgle Daemons, and I upped the psychic potential with a Neurothrope and sprinkled the psychic powers about.

Hive Fleet Behemoth Battalion (9 CP) 

HQ: Neurothrope (Warlord, Direct Guidance, Resonance Bard, Neuroparasite, Catalyst, Onslaught), Old One Eye (Adaptive Biology), Winged Hive Tyrant (Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands, Paroxysm, Monstrous Hunger, Monstrous Musculature, Psychic Scream)

Troops: 3x 10 Termagants, 3 Warriors (Boneswords, 2 Deathspitters, Venom cannon)

Elites: 10 Genestealers, 2x 6 Genestealers, 3 Zoanthropes (Catalyst) 

Heavy Support: 2 Carnifexes (2x Adrenal Glands, Enhanced Senses, Spore Cysts, Thresher Scythes, Talons, Heavy Venom Cannon), 2x Tyrannofex (Rupture Cannon)

So as usual I'll give a quick summary of each game, then some overall thoughts at the end. First up was against Brad with Deathskull Orks. Brad was returning to 40k after some time away since about 5th edition, but had a fun and kind of scary list filled with loads of toys, and spending almost all the CP right off the bat. Three units of ten boyz were supported by Deffkoptas, Grot Tanks, Squighog Boyz, Trukks, two blobs of Meganobz and I think six fighty characters. The mission was The Scouring.

The Orks got first turn and rushed the board, clearing off all my lurking Genestealers. The Nids were pushed back in the first couple of turns and scoring poorly, but some nasty smites, the combat prowess of the fexes, and some poor luck from Brad meant that by the end of the game the Orks didn't have a lot left. The score was pretty tight though, a win to the Tyranids, 78-68.

Onto round two, this time against Conner and his Genestealer Cult (previously seen playing Drukhari). He had what I assume is a typical mix of GSC infantry units, loads of characters, a trio of Ridgerunners with lasers, a few Goliaths and a couple of blobs of Purestrain Genestealers. It would be interesting to see how the two types of Genestealer got on together. The mission was Conversion.

This was a similar story to the previous game, with the GSC going first and taking board control while cutting through the chaff, and then suffering a nasty counter attack. We did find out that Behemoth 'stealers are the match of Purestrains, as a unit of 6 used the fight on death stratagem to remove 7 of their attacking opposite numbers, with the rest of the unit failing morale and running! With the scores very tight we had a key moment where the rock cutter armed Acolytes charged a Tyrannofex on the central objective, reducing it to a single wound to tie them up for another turn. That would turn out to be critical as when the points were tallied, the Nids were on top by a mere five points! 77-72.

The final game was against Lewis and his gorgeous Freeblade Lance of Imperial Knights. This was my first game against the new Codex so I wasn't quite sure what to expect of them. He had a Paladin warlord kitted out with loads of stuff, another character in a Castellan, and then three of each standard Armiger. The mission was Tide of Conviction.

This one was a bit one sided in favour of the Knights. They got first turn and from a corner deployment were able to blast one of the Tyrannofexes and a Carnifex off the board (the terrain set up and size of the models made it very difficult to fully hide them). I was able to get some pressure forward with Genestealers and the Hive Tyrant but my force quickly ran out of gas (and luck) after taking out a few of the Armigers I was reduced to a couple of broods of Termagants hiding in the ruins. I also have to admit I played it like a bit of a lemon and left my home objective at one point, not only costing me points but also denying my my command point for a round! The end result was 92-33 to the Knights (and I forgot to take a photo of the score sheet for this one, sorry! I think I scored a token few points for turn one Stranglehold, RND and Bring it Down.)

So in the end I went 2-1, but a low scoring final game meant I finished 4th out of 8. As usual I'll happily take mid table, though I have to admit for once, with a true 'top tier' faction I was hoping for better. In hindsight I actually think the list I took last time would have been a better bet for me, as it had much fewer moving parts and I was coming into this fairly low on games (as you may have noticed, I only had one post here in June!) I frequently found myself missing stuff in the command phase, forgetting who had what power, and simply wanting some more board presence. So with that in mind, I'm pretty pleased with my 2-1. I definitely think though next time I will focus more on writing a list that has a little bit less going on and without the pretensions of trying to win.

One more note, this was the first time Grim were using the BCP app and as an ITC event. While this is cool and I enjoy now having some ITC points (I have 78.61 and sit in 8418th position out of 12660 at time of writing), I didn't enjoy having the set the tables to specific terrain layouts at the start of each game. I'm not convinced that moving the ruins around to precise measurements improved the game much, and certainly contributed to the brain ache that this very complex game induces.

Regardless, I'll certainly go again, and I definitely had fun. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone involved in the event. Hope you enjoyed, stay safe!

Crusade Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus (and Imperial Knight) vs Genestealer Cults

Hello!

Here's what turned out to be my last game in the Grim Dice Crusade League, where 100 power level of Ryza Ad Mech, ably assisted by Lady Helena of House Taranis in the Knight Valiant 'The Defiant Flame' took on Ben and his Genestealer Cult. The battlefield was on a world or red sands and partially buried technology, so Helena presumably felt right at home as the Helios Explorator Fleet aimed to purge the xenos taint from this holy place - obviously this was what this Crusade was leading up to! 

The mission was Tech Recovery from the Plague Purge mission pack, a mission in which there are six 'covered' objectives, of which two are fake blips and four are valuable technology. Points are available for uncovering the objectives with an action and holding the tech once it has been found.

My force now consisted of units of Kataphron Breachers and Destroyers, Skitarii Rangers, Vanguard (10 of them), Rust Stalkers, Sulphurhounds (6 of them), two units of Sterylizors, Kastelan Robots and an Archaeopter Fusilave. They were led by a Dominus, Manipulus and a Cybernetica Datasmith, and as mentioned, accompanied by the Knight Valiant.

The Genestealer Cult forces were led by a Patriarch and pretty much one each of the other characters, and had a selection of Acolyte and Neophyte units, a mob of Aberrants, a full brood of Purestrain Genestealers, two units of Atalan bikers, a trio of Ridge Runners, a truck and a Rockgrinder. Their cult creed meant they could reroll charges and had a bonus for using mining weapons. That Rockgrinder was important, because I took the Tech Scavengers agenda so I'd have to kill it and then loot the wreckage for archeotech.

Deployment against GSC - the auspexes were pinging away with all sorts of crazy blips out there! I got first turn so the AdMech forces moved up to uncover some objectives.

Movement and Genestealer Cult Deployment done! Thanks to the terrain I didn't have that many shooting options - the Valiant was largely out of range, but the Destroyers backing it up could get at the Ridge Runners.

With uncharacteristic effectiveness, they killed off two in one volley! A good start that probably meant the Valiant would remain unmolested for the game.

Genestealer turn one, they largely ignored the objectives, uncovering one to my two. Instead they instigated an assault on the oppressors, swinging round on the flank to light up my Rust Stalkers with a truck full of hand flamers, and chip away at my Breachers with the bikes.

On the other flank the mining lasers took down one of the Robots, while the Patriarch made a bold charge in, reducing the other down to a single wound. However his quickness at dodging the power fists meant he survived the return attacks.

Admech turn two, time for some purging! Waiting for the opposition reserves, the Pteraxii stayed in the skies, but the Serberys Sulphurhounds sallied forth to engage the bikers on an objective. The Fusilave flew over and between it's bombs and stubbers nuked a bunch of cultists, with the Sulphurhounds mostly finishing the job - their particular brand of high volume fire coming in handy. Elsewhere shooting chipped wounds off the trucks and the Valiant finished the last Ridge Runner, while the Breachers killed off the last of the bikers on the left flank in melee. However the Patriarch managed to survive another round of combat, splitting his own attacks and reducing both the repaired robot and the Datasmith to one wound!

Time for the jaws of the trap to close on my poor Ad Mech! GSC turn two saw most of the reserves coming in behind, while the flamer unit dropped out of the truck to claim an objective and incinerate some Rangers in the process. Shots rang out from all around, and then the charges came in - the Aberrants making it into the Dominus, Eldane Katronosa, and dropping them, piling in to the remaining Vanguard. The Patriarch finally did the deed and killed off the Robot.

Elsewhere the damaged Rockgrinder, holding that vital archeotech, charged the Breachers. I interrupted to try and finish it off, but reduced it to a single wound, in exchange for two of the Kataphrons over the turn.

It was a hard counter punch, but those cultists are just flesh and blood, unlike us...

Flappy boy time! The Pteraxii descended from the skies to incinerate a chunk of the cultists, while the Fusilave went into hover mode and started gunning down characters, starting with the Nexus.

Then the cavalry unloaded, before charging in behind a wall of flame! They took out the Patriarch, though their shooting didn't finish off the Aberrants. This move at least denied the objective to the GSC at least.

On the other flank the Pteraxii made it into melee to kill off the remaining Cultists, though not before they interrupted and cut down a couple. Elsewhere amusingly the Destroyers made a charge and finished off a depleted Acolyte unit.

A decent counter-counter attack! However with both sides only picking up a single objective here and there, the score was still pretty close, with me in the lead after having uncovered two in turn one.

GSC turn three saw the Purestrains arrive and charge into the Sulphurhounds, but thanks to their rad-saturation reducing their strength (and some abysmal dice), 50 attacks translated into a single wound. The Aberrants did finish the Vanguard though to contest that objective, while the Kellermorph killed off a unit of Steryizors.

In my turn four the bomber flew over and killed off some Genestealers, while the Sulphur-breath burned a chunk more. I also had my last Pteraxii leave combat with the Truck to charge the damaged Rockgrinder, losing two more to it's attacks, the lone Alpha finally killed it!

This meant he was left standing over the Archeotech marker - which I thought I'd be able to grab in turn five, but re-reading the agenda I discovered the action finished in my next command phase! So once again denied some Archeotech by game length!

In the last couple of turns the remaining GSC units brawled with my Sulphurhounds, eventually killing them and having enough time to go flip one last objective. This left the final score close, but a win to the AdMech, 26-23!

Awesome, bloodbath of a game. Great to finish the Crusade League off on a high of course, but I'm bitterly disappointed to have missed out on that sweet Archeotech loot! I did get a bunch of XP though, and thanks to winning I got a free weapon enhancement - which I used to buff a Kataphron Destroyer Plasma Culverin. The destroyers got the MFG XP as well since they were actually good this game, eventually finishing off the Goliath truck in melee to cap things off!

Since the league used 'artificial' escalation I've now spent some requisition to go up to 65 supply limit, and removed a couple of units that were putting me over. Sadly that means Lady Helena is out of the Crusade once again, though I would one day like to include her again!

Anyway, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe!

Battle Report - Orks vs Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights

Hello!

Back to the Old Wolves Warhammer World meet up - for a second game my infantry heavy Snakebites teamed up with some vehicle heavy Freebooters to take on Imperial Knights and AdMech Robots! My list was the same as in the last game, but with the addition of 1250 points of buggies, Squighog riders, Killa Kans, Deffdreads and a somewhat familiar Burna Bomma! 

Our opponent took two 1250 point lists to the event, so mashed them together. The Knight Magaera, Knight Valiant (#rightdominus) and a Helverin teamed up with two big units of Kastelan Robots, a cheeky 5 Rangers and a gaggle of supporting characters.

Here's the deployment. Funky right? Another Open War draw:

Six objectives, scored in the command phase, a funky chevron no man's land deployment and extra attacks all round! I kept the Koptas in reserve and the Freebootas popped their Deffdreads in the tellyporta. The Kommandos did a sneak up the flank. The roll off happened and Orks got first turn...

Turn one features a lot of moving forward for the Orks, claiming lots of objectives for next turn and having some inconsequential shooting. The Bomma flew over the blob of characters and Robots to deal out a few mortal wounds, while the Kommandos ran up and deployed their distraction grot to inflict some damage on the Magaera, though not enough to degrade it, and all ending up dead in response.

The Mechanicus forces shuffled around a bit turn one, with a lot of targets in sight, and opened fire. Purple and Blue boyz suffered heavy casualties, Beast Snaggas were wiped between shooting and melee from the Valiant, our Squighog Boyz fell and the Bomma took damage but stayed in the sky. Overall could have been worse but we wouldn't be able to absorb that every turn! We were however starting turn two on three objectives, so that's points on the board.

Our turn two and it was operation claim objectives and kill a knight. The Magaera drew the short straw, taking some somewhat flaccid firepower from the newly arrived Deffkoptas, Killa Kans and Shokk Jump Dragster. On the other flank the Dreads dropped in, while the flyer left the board and the remaining Boyz and Squig moved up to get in the way. Rather unfortunately the Deffdread closest to the Helverin failed the charge, but one did make it into the Robots alongside the Wartrike, after the remaining Boyz ran in to eat overwatch. They didn't end up doing much damage but they did stop scoring. 

On the left a lot of stuff piled into the Magaera, but only the Hit 'em Harder Meganobz were required to strip off it's remaining wounds and bring it down. It then promptly exploded, taking a huge chunk out of the Ork advance!

Mechanicus turn two, they picked up two objectives and got to killing. One of the big robot blobs used a teleporter stratagem to jump to the other side of the board and assisted the Valiant in clearing a lot of stuff from the flank, though thankfully failing a charge into the remaining Killa Kans. The remaining robots and Helverin on the right flank cleared the Orks off their objective and took out two of the three Dreads. Another brutal turn to blunt our offense, but we still held three objectives.

Turn three, up to 6 points for the Orks, but running out of assets. The plane came back and did a smidgen of damage. Left flank basically did nothing other than tripling up on an objective with Boyz, Kans and my Weirdboy. On the right flank it was operation stop scoring - the remaining Dread and the Smasha Squig went ramming into the Helverin, battering it with mortal wounds.

The Kans charged into robots, this unit lacking fists so they would be 'relatively' safe in there, and more importantly making it tough for the Kastelans to claim the objective. Added bonus - the Kans brought a couple of them down!

Going into Mechanicus turn three, and a mere one objective being held by the Valiant. 6-3 to the Orks currently!

Not much left for the Orks after the turn three shooting and melee. The Dread was cleared off the former Helverin objective, though the Nob on Squig survived. The fist robots managed to make it into the remaining units on the left flank to take their objective. On the right my remaining boyz on our 'safe' objective took some damage, and the Kans got peppered with melee shooting and then charged by the AdMech characters to try and shift them, but they held for now. In the centre the Valiant charged into my 11 strong Gretchin, killing off 10 of them, leaving one 'Orrible Git on the objective! Since he was clearly a brave boy, I spent the CP to keep him from running.

Thanks to that, the Orks controlled four objectives in turn four, giving us a score of 10 points! We had very little left to play with though, so all we could really do was throw the Squig Nob into the shooty robots to unsuccesfully try and stop them claiming our objective from the Kans

Thanks to a lone Datasmith (which in hindsight we should have targeted with the Bomma), the Mechanicus alliance picked up four points, leaving the score 10-7 going into turn 5. The Grot got obliterated, and the Kans were overwhelmed. Some long range firepower pointed at my Boyz, killing them down to just the Nob. This meant that, looking at turn 5, the Mechanicus would be scoring four points regardless of what we did, for a total of 11. We were currently sat on 10 points, so would need to score a single objective in our turn to draw the game. So it all came down to a morale check on the Nob, needing a 1, 2 or 3 to stay.

I rolled a 4, handing victory to the AdMech and Knights, 11-10!

Another gloriously close game! I think we were left with just the Bomma alive, while the Imperial forces still had a big knight and more than half of the robots, but it still came down to a single dice roll! Regardless of the result, I had a great time catching up with people and hanging out in Warhammer World (and having a nice burger at Bugman's!) - I hope you've enjoyed these write ups, thanks for reading and stay safe out there!