Hey folks!
A semi-local store had been advertising a Warhammer weekend; there were a bunch of
40k events going on. A tank race, a character battle, a Soul Grinder challenge and during the whole thing, a 1500 point tournament. The last
RTT I attended here was a bit sketchy on missions (full-game nightfight, 5 mandatory objectives in 1500 points set by the
TO as far apart as possible, 12x12 building sized objectives, etc). These missions take the cake. And the icing. If there's a pie, they get the pie too.
I didn't bring a camera (my wife has it with her right now and she's out of town) so I didn't plan on doing any battle reports at all....but the nature of the missions, the challenge to adapt to them....well, I'm going to write brief summaries of each game. I brought a 1500 point wych cult. Lelith leading 5 wych raider squads with haywire grenades with ravager support (disintegrators, not lances) with a single elite. Interestingly, people kept coming up to my army and asking how many dark lances I have....and I'd tell them "Seven." Seven lances in 1500 points is not a lot at all. The fact that I run a wych cult means I don't have many lances anyway, but the unreasoned fear that people have of dark lances is interesting. One of the area's better players plays Black Templar; our last game together ended in a vicious draw, with me squeaking out the draw with a few gretchin, an empty truck, and several Lootas contesting all objectives that he was trying for. That game took a turn for the worse when he I declared a Waaaugh! and he used righteous zeal (with a chaplain or something) to move 8" AWAY from Ghazghkull and Burnas towards a deffkopta on his back table edge....putting him outside of charge range. I was hoping for a matchup; he always brings land raiders and blessed hull.
You can read my other battle reports for this event here:
Mission Two
Mission Three
So with that said:
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Mission One: Captive
Deployment: Both armies deploy 12" from the SHORT ends of the table. Yes, the short ends. And the tables are still side by side, making reaching your army seriously stressful.
Stats of the Captive: He's got the stats of a imperial conscript, except with a ballistic skill of zero. No weapons.
Objective: In the center of the battlefield is one individual, which belongs to neither army. Either this individual is a humanoid with information about the other army or a hybrid form of alien that will give an advantage to the other races. You must transport this being off of your side of the field. If the captive is still on the board at the end of the game, or is killed, both teams lose.
The captive must stay in coherency with the unit that picks him up. One figure from the unit must be in base to base contact with the captive and stay in contact for one full round before they can take off (EX: IF the Eldar get into base to base with the captive in round 1, they will have to wait until round 3 to move with the captive. This represents the soldiers "convincing" the being to come with them.
The captive moves a max of 6". Either it walks or gets transported by a vehicle. Jump packs and monstrous creatures can't carry it. If the transport is full of soldiers, i.e a rhino with 10 space marines, it can't carry the captive until there is space empty. For combat purposes, treat the captive like an attached independent character.
Win Conditions:
Massacre if you get the Captive off your board edge.
Major Victory if Captive is still on the table, and you have 5 or more Kill Points than your opponent.
Minor Victory if Captive is still on the table, but you don't have 5 or more kill points than your opponent.
Draw if the Captive is destroyed before he/she is escorted off the table.
The game lasts a fixed six turns.
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My opponent is playing Tyranids. He's got a kitted out hive tyrant, a deathleaper, two squads of genestealers, one with a brood lord, two sets of zoanthropes in spore pods (which have extra upgrades), a trygon, a unit of 20 shooty gants (the ones with STR4 18" guns).
Tactical Assessment of the Mission:
What. The. Fart. Massive fart. Flying farts. So my deployment zone is going to be 12" on the short edge, 24" away from the captive. If I move a raider flat out on turn1, disembark turn2 and get into base, spend turn3 in base convincing him, turn4 re-embark into a transport, turn5 move 12" towards my board edge (can't move flat out when you embark) and turn6 move flat out 24"....that will get me to my table edge but not over. Ok, turn2, I move my raider 6" away from the unit so that they can move 6" to the raider, get in and then the raider moves 12" and then 24" for a total of 42" - that'll get me off the board. This is under the MASSIVE presumption that my opponent is kind enough not to shoot at my AV10 open-topped transports. Or snipe down the unit with the captive. He's screwed anyway; tyranids cannot win this scenario, they have no fast transport that could even theoretically get the captive off the board by turn six. And with him deep-striking zoanthropes.....*shudders* Foot-slogging armies might as well snipe him turn1, cause a draw and go to lunch early. Worst of all.....we didn't realize this stuff until halfway through the game/at the end when we started to evaluate it.
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We roll off and Tyranids win the roll off. He plays his list as all reserves, so he takes second turn.
Dark Eldar Deployment: I deploy my raiders and ravagers up on my line. His deathleaper does his magic with D3 leadership and rolls a 2 - Lelith is at -1 leadership for the duration of the game because she's being hunted.
Tyranids: All in reserve.
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DE Turn1:
I move all my raiders flat out; one goes to the middle (my warrior raider) and the others all move around near by deployment zone so that when I move them into the middle turn 2, I can move them flat out.
Tyranid Turn1:
Nom nom noms in space! (reserve)
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DE Turn2:
My warriors disembark and move into base with the captive. It moves 7-8" away from them so if I lose it, they won't be hit. The rest of my raiders and ravagers move flat out and create a wall of raiders in a circle around my warriors so that tyranids can't deep-strike onto them and his deathleaper appearing out of nowhere can't jump in and assault my warriors.
Tyranid Turn2:
His reserves (+1 because of Hive Commander) get him his Hive Tyrant, the Trygon, one squad of zoanthropes, one squad of genestealers(with the Broodlord), and a deathleaper. His trygon tunnels up in the middle by my raiders, his Hive Tyrant deep strikes behind some trees between my raiders and my table edge, zoanthropes pod down right next to my raider wall, the deathleaper appears in the trees next to my raider wall, and his genestealers outflank on the long table edge on the side of the board he's standing on; he also deploys them 2" apart and brings them up to the treeline to minimize my ravager potential.
His Zoanthropes lance the wych raider closest to them and explode it (failed both cover saves). He wounds two wyches, one actually makes a paper save. The pod drops its large blast template onto my warriors holding the captive. They make their cover saves. The trygon has 12 shots from his guns and blows up the warrior transport. The hive Tyrant (I think) shoots at one of my ravagers in the rear and explodes it. I fail cover for it too.
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DE Turn3:
My raider/ravager screen broke apart to deal with the threats that were on the table now. I moved my warrior squad with the captive 6" towards my table edge; reading back through the mission now, I'm not sure if I was supposed to move him yet or not...I spent turn2 in base contact, but it kind of reads that you get into base contact during a turn, spend the next turn doing nothing, and then the following turn can move him. I also read it that he can only move 6" per turn ever - in previous captive missions, the captive couldn't be put into a transport, so I thought that was true here as well. At the end of my turn when I asked the
TO about it (after it dawned on me that I couldn't possibly get him off my board edge) he told me to put him into a transport and move him that way.
Anyway, two wych squads and raiders peel off to the trygon. They disembark 1" away, give him two blasters each, the raiders drop in two dark lances, and he only has two wounds left when I assault....and my "auto-wound on 4+" power weapon on the succubus in each squad finish it off.
Over by the Zoanthropes, the foot-slogging wyches close in to assault them. My blasters and pistols whiff. One of my other lances insta-pops the spore pod, and my wyches assault into his zoanthropes...I cause five wounds and he fails three losing a zoanthrope in the process. It whiffs in return, makes fearless saves and dies.
LoL. I consolidate but don't quite make it back into the cover of my raider crater. That means the genestealers and broodlord are coming for me next turn.
My ravagers line up and attempt to ravage (hehehe) his genestealers. Out of the 10+Broodlord, I manage to kill 8 and wound the broodlord. Damned 4+ cover.
My other two wych raiders moved 6" or less right up to the woods with the deathleaper in it. He's got 3+ cover because he's a badass. I drop a couple of blaster shots out of a raider and he devolves into biomass.
Tyranid Turn3:
His other zoanthropes come in, his genestealers come in, but his 20 gants stay out. He winces; 40 STR4 shots into AV10 would do some damage. The genestealers roll and come on from the table edge I'm standing on. His Hive Tyrant flies out from behind cover up to a ravager with the intent of assaulting it. His reduced genestealers move up, fleet next to my wyches. His zoanthropes only get one hit and immobilize a raider; his spore pod nukes one of the wych squads that killed his trygon and they are all killed. His newly arrived genestealers roll a 2" fleet and will fail to make it into base with anything; my vehicles are all hugging the middle of the board. His Brood Lord+2 stealers assault my 4 wyches, and he doesn't get the broodlord into base with my succubus, so uses his fearful gaze on another model instead. Two wyches die, both genestealers die, and we're locked in combat. His Hive Tyrant immobilizes and weapon destroys (once) the ravager, but doesn't kill it!
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Dark Eldar Turn 4:
My remaining ravager that is whole lights up the genestealers in the open with disintegrators and they crumple. I send a squad of wyches to support the reduced wyches in close combat with his broodlord and another squad to tie up the zoeys. The pod gets lanced and is gone. Lelith and friends disembark by the Hive Tyrant, and he absorbs two blasters and three dark lances (I actually rolled to hit well!) and he's dead. The squad with the captive gets into a raider and moves 12" towards the board edge.
Tyranid Turn 4:
His gants finally join the fight, coming in on his table side - they move on 6" and open up on the raider with the captive, stunning it. Even with a flat-out move I won't be able to get off the table edge now. His Broodlord gets finished off.
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Dark Eldar Turn 5:
His gants are going to revert to instinctive behavior since everything else is dead (last zoeys just died out too) and its all he has left on the table. Everything converges on the gants; I'm going to horrorfex/disintegrator/lance/pistol them this turn and assault next turn. Lelith gets back into her transport, everyone who can re-embarks; since his gants are
AP- they negate my open-topped and he can glance me to death but not roll a lucky 6.
With doom imminent, the Tyranid player concedes. While I wouldn't have been able to get the objective off the table, I would table him for the same result. I get a 20 point massacre.
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Post-Game Analysis: This was a messed up game mission. This was also the LEAST messed up mission of all three....*disbelief* I don't really ask around during tournaments to get point totals or anything, but someone told me post game that there were 3 massacres, 1 major victory, 2 minor victories and 10 ties.
We break for lunch and my opponent and I (who is a friend of mine) go get some Jersey Mike's and catch up on life.
2000 pts 
