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Ball and Chain is a hobby tournament run once a year. There are certain special limitations to each army which can be found at the top of the first battle report here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/400399.page#3380850

Here is the list I took:
Tyranid Prime – Deathspitter and Dual Boneswords
Tyranid Warriors (4) – 1 barbed Strangler, 3 deathspitters
Hormagaunts (18) – Poison and adrenal glands
Termagants (10)
Gargoyles (10)
Hive Guard (2)
Zoeys (2)

Battle 3 – Dawn of War
Primary objective: Capture and Control
Secondary Objective: Victory Points

Opponent – Imperial Guard (Rough unit guide from memory)
Straken plus Command in a Chimera
Guard Squad with a missile launcher
Guard Squad with about 4 grenade launchers
Leman Russ Battle Tank
2 x 2 Sentinels

Guard won the roll off and elected to go first, setting up one guard unit in the woods on my left, the other in some craters mid right. His objective is in the woods. He outflanks both sentinel units.

I setup my hormagaunts in a long line on my left (I wasn't going to have the same spacing problems as last game!) and set the warriors up with the Prime immediately behind them. I placed my objective in the central woods on my side.





Imperial Guard Turn one

Spotting the Tyranids unawares for once, the Imperial Guard steel themselves to push the advantage and launch themselves into an aggressive offensive in the early hours of the morning. The troops facing the Tyranid's right flank advance steadily onto the central ruins, eager to bring their grenade launchers to bear whilst the other guard squad steadies themselves to fire into the swarm. To aid in the attack, Straken and his command come in behind the woods on my left, whilst the Leman Russ takes up position centrally.

Straken, familiar with the Xenos main weakness, orders the tank to fire on the warriors, whilst the guard squad takes pot shots at the hormagaunts. A loud boom from the Russ' battle cannon sends dirt high into the air amidst the Nids, leaving a small crater where one of the warriors once stood and taking out 3 homragaunts as well. The guard squad fared less well, managing to dispatch a single gaunt.

Tyranids Turn 1

After scouting around for fresh prey, the Nids found themselves being peppered with shots from Guard that seemed to appear out of no-where. The Prime was quick to react though, ordering the horde forward and bringing the rest of the swarm to bear as quickly as possible. To that end, the hormagaunts advanced quickly onto the ruins (I think I rolled a 6 for running) with the warriors closely behind. The gargoyles came quickly onto the board and took up positions behind the central ruin. The Zoeys launched themselves quickly onto the field (another 6 for running), with the hive guard close behind. Meanwhile the temragants advanced cautiously onto the Nid home objective.

Apart from a stray shot from the warrior's barbed strangler, no shots were fired as everyone else was running into position - eager to feed.



Imperial Guard Turn 2

The guard reacted quickly to the speedy horde, trying to get into position before being overrun. The Chimera advanced up next to the guard squad in the woods, whilst the Central guard unit continued to advance towards the central ruin. They then tried to run onto the ruin, but fell short leaving them in the open. One of the sentinel units came on the Tyrnaids right flank, and advanced on the hapless termagants hiding on the Tyranids objective.

Firing saw the Chimera, Leman Russ and 1 guard squad open up into the main lines of the Nid swarm. The battlecannon from the LemanRuss blew up another two warriors, whilst the others managed to bring down some gaunts and wound a Zoey (I think with a scattered frag shot). The sentinels fired into the termagants, but only succeeded in taking one down.

Tyranid Turn 2

Eager for blood, the swarm descended on the hapless guardsman. The homragaunts closed in on the squad with the grenade launchers, with the gargoyles in close support. The warriors advanced near the ruins, with the Zoeys and Hive Guard close behind.

Shooting saw the the warriors shoot into the guard squad in the woods, bringing down four guardsmen and causing them to break. The gargoyles shot into the other guardsmen, bringing a few down and softening them up for the hormagaunts. The combined fire of the Zoeys and Hive Guard immobilised Strakens Chimera and blew off the multi laser.

In assault, the homragaunts pounced on the guard squad, and ripped them apart in a flurry of adrenal fueled scything talons. They then consolidated back onto the ruin.



Imperial Guard Turn 3

Hoping to turn the tide of recent events, Straken disembarked from the chimera and set about pulling things back together. The guard near the woods rallied and setup back in the woods. Starken and command advanced on the hormagaunts. The other sentinel unit came in to support the guard on the Nids left flank, whilst the other sentinels advanced to contest the Nids objective.

The Leman Russ again put its great cannon to work, this time blowing a Zoey sky high. The sentinels however had much less success, failing to kill anything.

In a desperate bid, the sentinels on the Nids right charged the termagants, guaranteeing that objective was contested, whilst Straken and command charged the homagaunts. Although the sentinels had little success, Straken took little time in butchering the remaining Xenos. The fight took it out of him though, and they couldn't consolidate very far away from the menacing form of the Tyranid Prime.

Tyranids Turn 3

Desperate to fight in hand to hand as was his purpose, the Prime and remaining warrior charged accross the ruin, nothing was going to slow him from his prey. The Hive Guard advanced on the sentinels on the Nids left, whilst the Zoey approached the battle tank. The Gargoyles (who thankfully passed their IB roll) moved quickly to contest the Guards objective and prevent the win.

In shooting, the hive guard succeeded in scewering both the sentinels on the left flank, whilst the Zoey had less success against the Leman Russ. The termagants remained locked with the other sentinels, whilst a battle of the leaders raged in the middle. The Prime, with his dual boneswords was too much for Straken, who keeled over to their destructive energies whilst the other warrior butchered the remaining command. The Warrior and Prime then consolidated towards the sentinels combating the termagants.



At this point, time was called. With both objectives contested, we totalled up our VP's.

It was a close game, but I think I ended up winning by about 70 points.

2 Wins and 1 loss to the swarm!

Please let me know what you think - C+C is always welcome and encouraged.

I will provide my own personal thoughts, and the next two batt reps at a later date.

Thanks for reading!

Guard was lucky to be able to see you in turn 1 with that Russ (he was rolling for spotting distance due to Night Fight right?)

Good win in a very close game - nice!

@Arakasi: Yeah - I don't recall rolling for night vision (can't remember whether we were just supposed to use the DoW setup, and not the night fighting rules, or if we both just forgot about night fighting...) It would have been possible to see me though with a good roll.

@Warboss Gutrip: Thanks!

So apart from how long the turns took (swarm nids v foot IG was always going to be hard to fit into a 1hr game, plus we took a bit to get started due to our table number not existing - we were supposed to be table 27 and the table numbers went from 26 to 28...) the game went quite well.

The Guard were unlucky not to get their Grenade launcher squad onto the center terrain (this may have helped them fight off my gaunts), but on the other hand his Leman Russ seemed to never miss a beat in blowing up my guys (if I didn't have cover saves, they would have all died in the second or third turn).

Everything basically did what it was supposed to though in this game - Zoeys blew up a chimera, Hive Guard took down sentinels, gargoyles harassed and contested, hormies got into CC quickly, Prime and warriors mopped up harder unit, and termagants sat on my objective.

We both agreed that had the game gone longer, my position was likely to strengthen from this point. I could focus fire from my Hive Guard and Zoey on his Russ (assuming he didn't blow up my last Zoey), the Prime and Warriors would advance on and deal with his sentinels, whilst the gargoyles continued to harass and contest.

The only thing I didn't like about my strategy, is again I feel I didn't spread out my guys enough (though I did better than last game).

Anyway, it was a fun game, and put me 2-1 up out of five games.

My next game is against Blood Angels - Will the Nids defeat another CC army like against the Chaos Marines? or will the angry marines be too angry (and pain resistant!) for my swarm.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Start of next Batt rep is up. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403668.page

Rest of Rep will be up tomorrow.