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Welcome, after quite a long break (real life getting in the way), to the ninth game in our Tyranid vs. Imperium campaign. The good news is that we have added a couple of extra battles into the campaign which should be posted in the next ten days or so.

In the last game, a huge Tyranid assault over-ran the landing fields and destroyed a large part of the defending garrison. The Imperium now only holds a small section of the research base, with the rest compromised or wholly in Tyranid hands (claws?).

Inquisitor Iniquitous is making his way to the last bastion of imperial defence, whilst Captain Gordus and the marine force makes its way slowly back through the jungle following the downing of his Storm Raven.

Meanwhile, the Hive mind casts its gaze to the heavens and sees the vessels of its enemies sitting in low orbit……

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Deep in the jungles of Remuera Majoris IV, an expense of newly grown alien flesh pulsed slowly in the murky light. Over 200 meters across, the purple-brown mass resembled a giant cyst enlarged to an impossible scale. A tremor ran through the ground, sending small nocturnal creatures scurrying in fear. With a great convulsive spasm, the giant cyst burst open, hurling a score of enormous pods upwards into the sky with tremendous force.

The hard-shelled organisms, propelled by the dying rupture of the cannon-cyst, reached escape velocity and sped away from the atmosphere. Hard vacuum formed ice across their dense chitin as they closed with a far-off group of lights hanging against the blackness of space. Thin beams of light and long ropes of speeding fire began to play across them as the close in defence systems of the Imperial ships detected the incoming spores.

Many of the pods were burst open by raking las-batteries and projectile launchers, spilling their organic payload to flash-freeze in the cold void. But even with the storm of fire intensifying, a handful reached their targets and burst open on the hull of the Imperial cruiser. From the fleshly ruin of the spores, shapes began to emerge. Tyranid warrior organisms, designed to survive in vacuum, scuttled forth onto the outer hull.
Within the ships, marine crash-squads from the Angels of Thunder formed up and headed for the access hatches as they prepared to repel boarders. The next chapter of the battle for Remuera Majoris IV would play out in the silence of the void under the cold glare of the uncaring stars…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The battle was played using the Boarding Action rules from the FW Badab War books.

Tyranid creatures pour onto the hull from their spore-pods


Driven by the Hive Mind, they seek out comms arrays and sensor towers


The Angels of Thunder vanguard reaches the outer hull and forms up


Purge the alien!


More spores split open to reveal further Xenos creatures


Marine fire blasts creatures apart or into space


But for every Tyranid that falls, three more take its place


Bolters run hot, but still the horde closes


The front lines are quickly over-run


The situation appears hopeless – there are simply too many Xenos


As the darkest moment, the reserve garrison of Sons of Gord and Salamanders arrives


They add their weight of fire to the hard pressed defenders


For many of the Angels of Thunder, it is too late


Still the horde comes…


More reinforcements arrive, burning great holes in the Xenos


The marine forces counter-attack to drive the aliens away from the critical systems on the hull


Massed bolter fire thins the horde


Desperate close combat breaks out


Eat bolter!


The marine elite deploys to the critical part of the battle


A scout squad bravely outflanks and attracts the attention of the Tyranid Prime


Sons of Gord hold the line against all comers


The garrison marines cut down the winged warriors as they close for the assault (awesome overwatch fire!)


In an insane display of heroism, the scouts cut down the Prime!


The terminators take the fight to the Tervigon…


..and crush it


Marine units push forward to secure the objectives


Devastators break the last resistance


The few living Xenos are driven off to be cleansed by the ships automated defences


The ship is secure – marine victory!
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Well, that was a game of two halves (actually two games). Initially, the marine force was wiped out by turn two due to terrible reserve rolling and a first turn Tyranid assault (you may want to alter the Boarding action rules a little for non-marine armies). But the second game was much closer.
MVP was the scouts who accounted for the Prime and some great missile shooting which took down a number of big bugs. Special mention to the tactical squad that killed two winged warriors with overwatch fire!

Next game, back to the jungle as Iniquitous commanders the reserve armour units in an attempt to break free of the Tyranid encirclement…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Marine sergeant Kharg pinned the Tyranid creature down with his boot before finishing it off with a bolter shot to the head. His squad were eliminating the last of the vermin still present on the outer hull. His comm-bead clicked as another squad leader linked in.

“They knew exactly what to go for to do maximum damage – the ships eyes and ears’

“Aye” Voxed back Kharg “Whatever they were doing planetside before we arrived has made these things even worse” he kicked the alien corpse and watched it spiral away from the hull.

He tilted his head up and looked at the dull ball of Remuera Majoris as it slid by under the ship
“Useless piece of rock. We should just nuke it from orbit”

“Only way to be sure” replied the other squad leader as he blasted another skulking termagant into space

Had a enjoyable read! Thanx for the report.

Btw love the old marines sculpts

Great rep as per usual sir! Nice to see the imperium win one. Haven't they been getting whooped in this campaign?
thanks for posting

Those are some very nicely painted Nids!

Nice report! Love this style of report and am now reading through the whole series.

Wow those armies looked great. Hats off too the nid army because wow, that looked great.

Every time I think I've seen the best, you do this to me - love the classic RT marine models! Glorious to see them in action.

You know what Im going to post Gordy about your reps so I wont even bother

Great rep!!

excellent old school figs!!

Thanks for the comments guys. It was good to get an imperial win, although the marine armies have done quite well in the campaign. We build the lists around the narrative rather than WAAC, so sometimes that throws up uneven results (plus Sandy really knows how to get the best out of his Nids)

The next two games are already done, so keep your eyes out over the next week for them

Remuera these days Good stuff as always; keep it up.

Great rep, it was a fun read!

I have to chime in, the nid paint scheme is really top notch. I have even gotten inspired by it, for how i will be painting my gargoyles when i get around to doing them.

Thanks for posting.

 Gordy2000 wrote:
plus Sandy really knows how to get the best out of his Nids

Both on the table and with a paintbrush. Love the way the blue came out.

HA. marines win again. Amazing battle reports. I just read all 9 of them.

Great work, as usual!

Those purple bases!

I wish every battle rep looked like this one! Any chance of a link to the previous 8 parts? I am new to your work and would love to see more.

Any chance of a link to the previous 8 parts? I am new to your work and would love to see more.

Hi caminacambob, a link to the other reports is in my sig, or check the Dakka articles under batreps

I've been looking forward to this report for a while. I'm very glad to say it did not disappoint in the least.

Thanks for sharing Gord.

Top-notch work, as always. Beautiful models.