When I arrived, they were going through some D&D stuff, but Nick was still all about throwing down versus the Nids. We decided on 1,500 points and lists were started!

I had decided, based on previous games that Carnifexes are out and Tervigons were in. I also decided to try out the Ymgarl Genestealers and my brand new converted Tyranid Prime with boneswords.

Nick won deployment, so I started laying down my whole army. It seems that Nick and his friends go back and forth deploying units from the Force Organization Chart (FOC) in a certain order. Either way was fine by me. I went through and explained what everything was and showed him the units in Reserves. He had asked which units had Fleet as well and I told him.

Nick’s list included several Crisis Battle Suits (?) with all manner of weaponry, a special character named O’Shova (sp), a couple of tanks, a unit of Stealth Suits and a few units of Fire Warriors. Below is my list:

• Tyranid Prime (Boneswords, Adrenal Glands)
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord, Adrenal Glands)
• Ymgarl Genestealers x8
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Tervigon (Catalyst, Adrenal Glands)
• Termagants x10
• Hormagaunts x20 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Raveners x3
• Zoanthrope x2
• Spore Mines x4
• Spore Mines x5

As usual, I don’t remember every detail, so I’ll try to describe how the game went in a summary. I did remember to deep strike the Spore Mines prior to deployment, which worked as I hoped to put him on the defensive in his deployment strategy. My first turn, the Spore mines scattered all over the place, the Tervigon generated 11 Termagants, the Hormagaunts moved, ran and Assaulted his Stealth suits, who’d deployed near the middle of the table and subsequently wiped them out, a shot from a Venom Cannon took out a Crisis suit in the back of his deployment zone and caused panic. In his first turn, he was able to kill off some Termagants and a few other small things and he Assaulted the Hormagants with his character and a few Crisis suits. The Hormagaunts ended up getting wiped out in return. Later on, the Genestealers arrived via outflank right near his Devilfish, which had already disembarked, The Raveners showed up right in front of his character and Crisis Suits, and the Ymgarls hung out in dormancy for the moment and the Tervigon created 13 Termagants. The Genestealers junked the Devilfish since it was working toward killing off the Zoanthropes and no other Assaults happened. His character group shot at and assaulted the Raveners and the Ravener was able to do some damage back. Lots of Genestealers died to the guns of some Fire Warriors and some Crisis Suits nearby. The following turn the Ymgarls arrived and killed off a Crisis suit in Assault, O’Shova survived a barrage of weapons shot at him, the Genestealers went up against the Crisis Suits and killed maybe one of them.

I think it was about here we had to call the game. I think in the end, the Tyranids might have pulled out a win if we’d been able to continue. Nick had yet to play against the new Nids and now says he might have built a different army using more Fire Warriors. I agree that would have changed the game a lot! In either case, the game was a blast and I look forward to playing Nick again.

His list:

• Leman Russ (Battle Cannon, Heavy Bolter ?)
• Leman Russ (Battle Cannon, Heavy Bolter ?)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Plasmagun, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Stormtroopers (Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Valkyrie (Lascannon)

My list:

• Hive Tyrant (Hive Commander, Paroxysm, Leech Essence, Armored Shell, Stranglethorn Cannon, Scything Talons, Tyrant Guard x1)
• Zoanthropes x2
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Termagants x20
• Hormagaunts x20 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord)
• Raveners x3 (Scything Talons)
• Spore Mine Cluster x4
• Spore Mine Cluster x4

The mission was simply to kill everything!

I put the Hormagaunts in Reserve to utilize the Hive Tyrant’s Hive Commander ability to outflank. He put his Stormtrooper unit in Reserve as well. This time I remembered to Deep Strike my Spore Mines properly and each ended up pretty close to where I wanted them.

JR won the roll for first turn and deployed along his back line. I deployed everything except the Raveners and aforementioned Hormagaunts. He opened with having the Valkyrie perform its Scout move and open fire into my Genestealers, who Infiltrated into some area terrain. He then fired at them using his Chimera weapons available to him. In the end of the shooting phase, all of the Genestealers had died and the Broodlord had suffered a wound. I also lost a number of Termagants and maybe a Warrior. My first turn, several Spore Mines left the table (probably because I was scattering them 2D6″ instead of just D6″) and two ended up near some tanks. Turns out their explosion could do nothing against them. The Zoanthropes fired at the Valkyrie, which brought it down (turns out I used Psychic shooting attacks wrong by only doing the Psychic test).

Second turn, he wiped out more Termagants and both units of Tyranid Warriors due to Instant Death. The Broodlord survived the deluge. The Broodlord attempted to assault a Chimera, but failed to do much to it. Hormagaunts arrived and assaulted a different Chimera, doing very little as well. Zoanthropes took some shots at a Leman Russ, which passed its cover saves.

Third turn, the cimera in combat with the Broodlord attempted a tank shock on him. The contents of the tank unloaded from it and filled the Broodlord full of melta death. Shots were fired at the Hive Tyrant, killing the Guard and wounding the Tyrant. Hormagaunts still failed to do any real damage to the Chimera, except maybe a Weapon Destroyed. Carnifex moved closer and killed off the empty Chimera and the Zoanthropes wasted a Leman Russ. Hive Tyrant assaulted the Vets in the open, but not before killing a few with Leech Essence and reducing their WS and BS to 1 with Paroxysm (I’m not 100% sure that was legal). Three Vets survived and ran where the Tyrant couldn’t catch them. Hormagaunts finally destroyed the Chimera and since the guys inside had no way to get out with the Hormagaunts blocking the one access point, so they died as well. Raveners arrived to stand in the open.

I think we called it very soon after that and I might have my sequence all messed up, but that’s the gist of how it went down.

In the end, we totaled the kill points and each of us had 4. I got two Chimeras with troops, a Leman Russ and the Valkyrie. He got the Termagants, two units of Warriors and the Genestealers with Broodlord.

A very fun game and it was cool seeing JR again for the first time since probably Gen Con 2009.

It was also awesome getting a bunch of Khador stuff from him on the cheap!

Two days prior to the tournament, I kinda had a thought that my only real option for coming out of the tournament with any real kind of recognition was to have a fully-painted army (since I play Ogres and would be playing against some tournament-level players), so I began painting my Butcher. I finished painting him the morning of the tournament. I think he came out pretty well.

In either case, the tournament was set to start at 11:30am, but we started at about 12 or 12:30pm since some people were supposed to be showing up.

Here is the army list I ran:

• Bruiser (Sword Gnoblar, Luck Gnoblar, Gnoblar Thiefstones x2, Great Weapon, Heavy Armor)
• Butcher (Bangstick, Dispel Scroll, Tooth Gnoblar x2)
• Bulls x3 (Additional Hand Weapon, Bellower)
• Bulls x3 (Additional Hand Weapon, Bellower)
• Ironguts x3 (Bellower)
• Ironguts x3 (Bellower)
• Gnoblar Trappers x8

997 points

The first round, I was paired versus Bill Favorite and his Orcs & Goblins. First turn saw my Bruiser + Ironguts unit shot at by bolt throwers, causing a Panic check, which they failed on an 11. One of his spell casters had a miscast and died as a result. My first turn, the Ironguts + Bruiser unit failed to rally and ran off the table. The game was not starting off well for me and I do admit to being a pretty bad sport about it. The rest of the game was my Ogres trying to make it across the table to engage his units. My second Ironguts unit was charged by Night Goblins three times and in most combats, my Ogres killed one or two in each round. Finally, the Ironguts + Butcher failed a Break test, ran, and were caught by the Goblins. In the end, he killed every model I had on the table while I managed to remove a bolt thrower or two and a Snotling Pump Wagon. Normally, I don’t like to blame losses on terrible die rolling, but in this case, it seemed the dice wanted to “put me in my place”.

Second round I got the “bye” and played Sean with his Tomb Kings. My luck had totally turned around for me in this game. The benefit of having his shooting being mostly nullified by my high-enough toughness and the fact that I felt like I was playing more tactically saw me wipe his whole army in the end. He spent several turns trying to kill off my Gnoblar Trappers with a full unit of 10 archers, but only managed to kill one or two a turn. The Chariots tried charging a unit of Bulls a few times, where I remembered that I have the option to flee. A flank charge from the Ironguts + Bruiser wiped them out. I ended up getting a pretty decent victory out of that one.

Third round, I played against one of the other players’ sister, Sarah. She was also playing Tomb Kings. I got the feeling from having watched the end of one of her games that she was a pretty new player, so I tried to make sure to be as open as possible about how the Ogres worked before we started playing. The main highlights of this game was her chariots charging some Ironguts + Butcher and having Righteous Smiting do no damage whatsoever as well as having their impact hits do very little. In the end, the Ironguts + Bitcher managed to remove the chariot from beneath the Tomb Prince, but the chariots ended up winning combat later anyway. The Bruiser + Ironguts moved down the flank along with some Bulls to wipe the unit of archers, Carrion and eventually the Screaming Skull Catapult. Another unit of Bulls wiped the second unit of archers and tried to catch the other two characters, but only managed to kill one of them.

After that, results were announced and I came in 6th place. Pretty respectable for the ol’ Ogres. I did end up winning for best painted and had 15 “points” to spend.

A very well-run and enjoyable tournament. Most everyone I played against was very friendly and I had fun playing them. I big thanks goes out to Sean for running the tournament and Games To Die For for hosting it.

The awesome thing was that Jim had shown up that morning to play 40K, which is what usually happens on Saturdays at the store. He saw we were setting up for a Warhammer Fantasy tournament and he decided to throw his Daemons in the mix. I believe he came in 8th.

Fred and I, after a week or two of delay, were finally able to play a decent-sized game of Warhammer 40,000. This would be my third game with the Tyranids for me and probably Fred’s third game with his Necrons.

His army:

• Necron Lord (Staff of Light, Resurrection Orb, Veil of Darkness)
• Necron Destroyer Lord (Staff of Light, Resurrection Orb, Destroyer body)
• Necron Warriors x16
• Necron Warriors x16
• Necron Warriors x15
• Necron Destroyers x3
• Scarab Swarms x5
• Scarab Swarms x5

My list:

• Hive Tyrant (Hive Commander, Paroxysm, Life Leech, Scything Talons, Stranglethorn Cannon)
• Tyrant Guard
• Termagants x20
• Hormagaunts x20
• Raveners x3
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Spore Mines x4
• Ripper Swarms x4
• Zoanthropes x2

The mission, which I don’t remember the name of, gave us 4 objectives to control and the deployment was table quarters.

After deployment, I then realized I made a mistake with my Spore Mines. I completely forgot to Deep Strike them. I decided I’d just deploy them into an unoccupied table quarter to be fair. Fred took the first turn of the game, which mostly consisted of him moving his army forward. He moved one of his Warrior units close to the center most objective placed in some ruins. I think he might have got off a few shots into the Termagants. My first turn consisted of trying to take out some things with the template weapons I have. I was able to knock over a couple of Destroyers, which was better than I expected. The Termagants were able to shoot at and assault a unit of Scarab Swarms, killing all but one of them.

Second turn, when rolling for his Destroyers, two of them were removed. Fred then solidified his position closer to the center objective and one other objective farthest away from my army. Some shots were fired, but not much died. He moved his unit of Scarab swarms close to the Carnifex and a Spore mine to try and blow it up on my own guys. I think he might have inflicted a wound this way. The same Scarabs assaulted the Carnifex, who killed 3 swarm bases due to Instant Death. I felt kinda bad since Fred did not realize how that rule worked. One of my Zoanthropes took a wound from shooting. The termagants freed themselves from the final Scarab Swarm. In my second turn, I rolled for reserves and outflanked with the Hormagaunts (thanks to the Hive Tyrant) and genestealers; the Raveners were still stuck out in limbo. When rolling for which table edge, they both came in on the same edge as my table quarter, farthest from the action. Again I tried displacing the Warriors from the center objective by firing “pie plates” into them. This knocked over a few, but failed to outright kill any of them. The Ripper Swarms assaulted the Destroyer Lord and failed to do much. The Carnifex finished off the Scarab Swarms left to him.

In Fred’s third turn, he managed to wipe out the Termagants and a couple of Tyranid Warriors through shooting. He assaulted the Zoanthropes with his Necron Lord on foot and destroyed them. Actually, now I’m losing track what happened when. I know that same Lord also later assaulted the lone Tyranid Warrior instead of the Hive tyrant, who I was hoping he’d assault. In either case, the Carnifex assaulted a unit of Warriors, destroying a few and the Tyranid Warriors moved close enough to the objective to contest it. Hormagaunts and Genestealers moved close enough to another objective to claim it outright. The Raveners arrived to stand around looking mean and the Tyrant assaulted the Necron Lord on foot only to whiff on all his attacks.

We had to call the game there since the store was closing. Fred, of course, won the game due to his ability to claim and hold objectives with the nigh unkillable Warriors. Man, those are tough cookies!!

Per the usual, an awesome game and one I’d like to have a rematch on!

Enjoy!

His list:

• Sheik Araoui Ibn Khalid, Khaliman Diplomat
• Sorhna Oracle
• Malikh Jaraya
• Malikh Jaraya
• Suleman Ghulam
• Malikh Tuareg
• Malikh Meharist

My list:

• Tamel’Seh Far Eye
• Crow Thunder-Warrior
• Auroch Totem-Warrior
• Auroch Totem-Warrior
• Wolf Thunder-Warrior
• Toad Thunder-Warrior
• Toad Thunder-Warrior

Scenario: Jin posts.

Per the usual, I don’t remember all the details of the game, but for me it was mostly a refresher anyway. I did lose to Joel’s Khaliman and his superior tactics. The Meharist is one quick mutha and was able to take control of one of the Jin Posts very early and then come support the effort at the middle Jin post later on. We finished at 9pm rather than from playing a certain number of turns, unfortunately, as one of my Auroch Totem Warriors was in charge range of his Sheik.

I do still like Alkemy as a game, but the lack of releases makes it difficult to make it anywhere near the top of my gaming list. However, if anyone asks me to play, I’d be more than willing to do so.

I’m not going to try to remember the lists we used or specific things that happened in the game since it was really a “demo” of sorts. I will, however, say that the Tyranids decimated the Imperial Guard via mostly shooting attacks.

It was a fun game, if a bit frustrating when trying to remember all the rules. I’m hoping he got a good feel for them and that we’ll play again soon!

His list:

• Fiona
• Press Gangers (min)
• Sea Dogs (max)
• Dirty Meg
• Mariner
• First Mate Hawk
• Lord Rockbottom
• Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile

My list:

• Sorscha
• Destroyer
• Juggernaut
• Kodiak
• Iron Fang Pikemen (max)
• Iron Fang Pikemen Officer & Standard Bearer
• Greylord Ternion
• Widowmakers

(looks like I went over by 2!)

I won deployment and had him go first. Not a whole lot happened on his turn. He moved most of his stuff down the middle, with the Mariner, Dougal and Meg moving more or less down my left flank. His Mangler seemed to be keeping to my right. My turn, I merely moved up and I think I tried firing the Destroyer’s bombard into the Sea Dogs, but it missed. Sorscha, Juggernaut and Kodiak moved around his right flank while the Destroyer, IFP and Greylords moved down the middle with the Widowmakers hiding in the woods on his left (after I realized they have Advance Deployment!).

His next turn he tried Influencing several of my IFP to attack each other and managed to kill just one. The Mariner fired on the Juggernaut, causing minor damage. Sorscha was on the edge of the woods on his right flank and took some pretty serious damage. The Juggernaut got Stalled by Meg. Fiona did her feat. The Widomakers managed to kill one or two Sea Dogs, the Ternion reduced the defense of the Mangler by 4, the IFP charged the Mangler and some Sea Dogs, damaging it pretty seriously and killing several of them. The Destroyer fired into the Sea Dogs, killing more of them and they fled. The Kodiak charged the Mariner, causing some damage.

The third turn, Joel set the Juggernaut on fire (while still Stalled) and moved some Press Gangers into the woods where Sorscha was hiding. He then used one of them as an arc node to kill Sorscha. Unfortunately, the wound roll on her was not enough to kill her. In my half of the turn, Sorscha moved up, did her feat and attempted to damage Fiona. The Kodiak left combat with the now-frozen Mariner and squished Fiona to finish the game.

Of course, there may be some places where I got things in the wrong order above, but that was the gist of what happened. As usual, it was a really good game and it was refreshing to play a different faction from Cryx.

Since I had no idea exactly how many models Fred had, I estimated he’d have 20 or so Warriors, 3 Destroyers, 3 or so Scarab Swarms and the Lord. Turns out he has 70+ Warriors and probably 10+ Scarab Swarms. It also turns out he has a Necron Destroyer Lord as well. In either case, I thought an 800 point game would work well for learning the game and for me to learn the new Tyranid codex, not to mention 800 points is just below what I have painted.

Here’s the list Fred ran:

• Necron Lord (War Scythe, Resurrection Orb, Veil of Darkness)
• Necron Warriors x11
• Necron Warriors x11
• Scarab Swarms x3
• Necron Destroyers x3

I ran:

• Hive Tyrant (Stranglethron Cannon, Bone Sword, Lash Whip, Armored Shell, Paroxysm, Leech Essence)
• Carnifex (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Bio-Plasma)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Genestealers x8 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Termagants x20

We played the Capture and Control scenario with Pitched Battle deployment. I won the roll and decided to deploy and go first.

In the first turn or two, my shooting did pretty much nothing. His Scarab Swarms ended up assaulting the Termagants and the Gaunts won combat a few times until the little buggers were finally gone. None of my shooting managed to do anything until the later turns and his “We’ll Be Back!” rule kept whatever I did wound on the table. His destroyers nearly wiped out a unit of Tyranid Warriors and the Carnifex didn’t get into combat until much later. The Genestealers, which I’d forgotten about until probably the third or fourth turn showed up on the table edge nearest his Necron Warriors squad who’d just been Veiled there by the Lord. The Genestealers ended up wiping the unit and the Lord with them. The following turn the Carnifex finally assaulted a Warrior unit, destroying it and then we called the game since all he had left were the three Destroyers and so would Phase Out anyway.

It was a really good game and even though Fred lost, he’s still interested in playing again and at a higher point value. I lent him my 40K book to read up on the rules and he gave me some models to take home and repair for him. I finished what I could of the Destroyers this morning and started working on some Scarab bases. Some bits will need to be ordered to get everything where it needs to be, but that shouldn’t take too much money or time.

Here’s what I used:

• Thor’s Mighty Chariot
• The Mighty Thor
• Thor
• Heimdall
• Balder
• Hogun
• Fandral
• Sif
• Spider-Man (Thor version)
• Valkyrie (on foot)
• Enchantress
• Beta Ray Bill

My first game was against a guy named Rich. He was also playing an Asgardian team. I don’t know if it was my slow playing, from lack of understanding of the rules or what, but he killed Beta Ray Bill while I killed an Asgardian Warrior. He won that one.

The second game was against Charles, who apparently didn’t have enough models for 2,000 points and only played 873 points. His first opponent played his full 2,000 points against him and won pretty easily. I decided to make it more fair and reduce my list down to his point level. I ran Thor’s Mighty Chariot, Balder, Enchantress and Fandral. He had Thor’s Mighty chariot, Ragnarok Surtur and Fenris Wolf. I ended up winning that one by killing everyone on his team. It didn’t help that in two consecutive turns the Surtur rolled a critical failure.

The third game was against Mark(?), who was running the tournament. He ran The Specter and Hela. It was definitely an uphill battle for me. I did end up losing, but I felt pretty good about damaging the Specter a couple of times and killing Hela outright with Heimdall and Balder.

In the end, I walked out with a new map and a Runaways team ability card. Everyone there was really cool and playing the game was a ton of fun. Yeah, it’s a ‘clix’ game, which a lot of serious mini gamers look down on, but it is still a decent fun game. I look forward to playing in future tournaments at lower point levels, where I can use all my own minis.