Map of the terrain.

We played each of the 4 forests as Mysterious Forests and each of the 4 lakes as Mysterious Lakes. What that means is that when a unit enters the forest or lake, then something happens. To simplify the game, we will just roll once for the forests and it will apply to all the forest. Same with the lakes.

We both roll for our Warlord Traits.

My Warlord gives his army Move Through Cover and Stealth (Conqueror of Cities). Woohoo!!! Just the powers that I wanted. Janthkin then points out to me that it only applies when you're moving through ruins.

Janthkin's Warlord gets Legendary Fighter (I believe). What that is is that for every character his Warlord kills in a challenge, he gets 1 Victory Point (VP).

We then roll to see if it is Night-fight and it is.


Tyranids deploy gargoyles with the Parasite and the tyrannofex to the right. Keep in mind that Heavy Support choices are scoring in this scenario.


He then deploys flyrant, both hive guards and tervigon to his left.

As his units are within 3" of his Mysterious Objective, we roll to see what the objective does and we find it to be Sabotaged! It then explodes but fails to hurt his T6 units (it explodes for a S4, AP- large blast around the objective every turn on a roll of 1).

Tip - since the explosion is centered on the objective itself, you can actually deploy 3" away from the objective and not be hit by the blast.

Ymgarls and termagants will be in reserves. Genestealers will infiltrate.


I deploy my 2 annihilation barges to the left (my left).


On the right, are my wraiths and surflords (Overlords on command barges). They are on an objective. I then roll for the Mysterious Objective and get a 2 - nothing.

I have to leave my night scythes in reserves as flyers have to start off in reserves.


Finally, Janthkin infiltrates his genestealers in front of his tervigon and hive guards as a screen.

Tip - had Janthkin gone second, his genestealers would be able to assault on Turn 1. The rule for Infiltrate denies you a 1st turn charge, however, unless it specifies otherwise, a turn only refers to a player's turn.

He then rolls for his Mysterious Lake special rule and get 6 - Iceblood. Basically, an iceblood pool is dangerous terrain but any unit that moves through or ends its move in it can re-roll failed armour saves.

Note - this is a huge buff to tyranids as Move Through Cover means that they automatically pass dangerous terrain tests. Thus there is no downside to him moving through the iceblood pool.

I decide not to seize the initiative and we begin.

Flyrant jumps into the pool for some re-rollable armour fun. Genestealers also move through the pool for the re-rollable armor buff. Tervigon advances and then FNP's his block of stealers.

I must say that this is a huge boon for tyranids. Due to the lack of AP1/2 weaponry in the necron army, the tyranids have become quite resilient now with re-rollable armor, at least against my army.


On the right, the rest of his army advances.

Also, both unit of hive guards move behind LOS-blocking terrain. However, his middle hive guards also enter into the Mysterious Forest so we roll to see what happens....he gets Ironbark Forest!!! This is the best possible result he can get as now all the forests provide 3+ cover!!! Sh*t!

Re-rollable armour saves and now 3+ cover in forests. Not good for my crons. Now I can't just rely on shooting his guys to death.


Tyranids then run. Tervigon runs into the pool for re-rollable armor as well. Genestealers try to screen out his flyrant from a possible assault.


Gargoyles run into the forest for 3+ cover.


Tyrannofex then shoots at my annihilation barge. I roll a 4 on my cover save and fail. The t-fex then blows it up.


We then remember that it is night-fight and my unit has Stealth as it is more than 24" away. The barge unblows itself up. Woooo.


Middle hive guards fail to kill a command barge and right hive guards drop 1 wraith from my far-right wraith unit.

Now for some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that his shooting did minimal damage.

The bad news is that favorable Mysterious Terrain rolls have made this battle much, much tougher for my necrons.


I decide to ignore his right flank - the flyrant and genestealers - in order to focus on the gargolyes on his left flank and move my units accordingly.

Here I make a mistake tactically. I moved my right command barge 12" in preparation to assault his flyrant with my Overlord. Janthkin then informs me that my Overlord can't disembark if his ride moves more than 6". Doh! He was nice enough to let me redo my movement, but I decided not to. I always have a backup plan.


Talk about BS. Due to Night-fight, gargoyles and hive guards in the forest were getting 2+ cover!!! But my annihilation barges had no one else to shoot at so the only thing I could do was shoot at them (his gargoyles). Due to several of them being outside the forest (I believe 3 models), I manage to kill 5 gargoyles. It should have been more like 12 or so if not for those damnable Mysterious forests!!!

Tip - You can actually do what is called Focus-fire in the Shooting phase. I totally forgot about this and I think in this case, it wouldn't have mattered. But in certain situations, focus-fire can actually help you to ignore those annoying cover saves and kill more models.


My surflord than flat-outs 18" towards his hive guards. My strategy is to use my 255pt HQ as a decoy to draw his 340pts of stealers away from my main army. If he doesn't go after my Overlord, then I'm going to have free access to his hive guards and tervigon.


My surflord then charges his gargoyles. However, both units of wraiths fail their charge against the gargoyles!!!

His gargoyles then pile in. The Hammer of Wrath from the chariot's charge then kills 3 gargoyles. This, however, kills all 3 gargoyles in base with my chariot and since at normal initiative there is no one in base contact, the combat is effectively over. Damn! I was hoping to kill more more gargoyles with mindshackles and my regular attacks.

Note I - we actually played the Fight Sub-phase a little out of sequence. Janthkin piled in with his gargoyles before I did my Hammer of Wrath chariot attacks. It should have been the other way around - I do my Hammer hits first and then he would pile in with his gargoyles. But in this case, the end result ended up the same - his gargoyles couldn't pile in far enough to make it into base with my command barge and so the combat ends.

Note II - I make another tactical blunder here....I forget to issue a challenge to his Warlord, the Parasite of Mortrex. Now whether he could or would accept the challenge, I'm not sure. Still, it would have been in my favor to issue the challenge.

Edit - Never mind. You can't issue challenges from a chariot.

This is a critical phase for tyranids. After my mess-up last turn, with both wraiths failing their charges against his gargoyles, Janthkin can really do some damage with his counter-attack. How well his counter-attack goes may well determine how the game will turn out.


His ymgarls come in from reserves in the forest where my wraiths are. His termagants also come in as well.

By the ways, reserve units now come in on a 3+ on both Turns 2 and 3. On Turn 4, they automatically come in.


They then move out of terrain and prepare to charge the closer wraith unit.

The new 6th Ed. rule is that you cannot assault on the turn you come in from reserves. However, the ymgarl's Dormant special rule overrides the basic rulebook (BRB) and allows them to assault on the turn they come in from reserves. To my knowledge, the only other unit that can assault on the turn they come in are Vanguard Veterans.


Genestealers move towards my command barge while hive guards move away from them. His tervigon casts FNP on the hive guards.


Gargoyles go after my wraiths as well. They only move 6" so that they can use Hammer of Wrath.

Tip - jump infantry has the Hammer of Wrath special rule, which gives them free hits when they charge an enemy in assault. However, in order for them to use it, they can only move 6" in the Movement phase.

The tyrant swoops 24" from one iceblood pool to another iceblood pool so that he can get his re-rollable armor saves. He opts not to perform his Vector Strike.

Swooping is a move only flying monstrous creatures (FMC's) can do. Basically, they have to move 12"-24" and cannot assault afterwards. However, the advantages are numerous. They get to perform a special attack called the Vector Strike over any 1 unit they move over, they cannot be assaulted and they are only hit on 6's by enemy shooting (unless the shooting unit has the Skyfire special rule, in which case they hit based on normal Ballistic Skill.)


His tyrant tries to cast Paroxysm on my right-most wraiths but I deny his power by rolling a ! Take that biotch!!! His flyrant, however, does manage to put maybe 1 wound on my wraiths with 1 set of twin-linked brainleech devourers.

Every unit now has a chance to resist any psychic power targeting them. They can Deny the Witch, or resist the psychic power, on a D6 roll of 6. If the unit has a psyker in it, then the chance to resist a psychic power increases.

His middle hive guards then shoot down 2 wraiths from the left unit and his gargoyles 1 wraith and 1W on another wraith from the right squad.

His tyrannofex fails to shoot down anything.

His right hive guards fail to damage my command barge.


Genestealers then assault my command barge.


Not only do they easily strip off its hull points, but they manage to explode it as well. The explosion kills only 1 of the genestealers but doesn't hurt my Overlord.

Janthkin gets 1 Victory Point because he draws First Blood by killing one of my units first.


Gargoyles and ymgarls then combo-charge my right wraiths. Hammer of Wrath from the gargoyles kill off 1 wraith and I believe put 1W on another wraith (I wasn't rolling well against those S3 hits).


Not only do they wipe out my wraiths, but the Parasite of Mortrex also spawns 5 ripper swarm bases. That's an additional 15 wounds of fearless tyranids. Ouch!

Finally, his tyrannofex charges my Warlord's command barge. He forgets that I have Mindshackle scarabs as I make his t-fex attack itself. Mindshackles plus warscythe attacks from my Overlord manages to put 5W on his t-fex.


Overall, it is a good turn for my opponent as he blows up a command barge and then wipes out one unit of wraiths without any casualty on his part.

I need my flyers (night scythes) to come in if I am to have any hope of winning this game.


Unfortunately, only 1 night scythe (with warriors embarked) comes in this turn. It moves 18" towards his genestealers in hopes to whittle them down before the inevitable assault on my Overlord. Overlord goes after his hive guards.

Note - moving flyers is kind of tricky and needs some getting used to. They can only turn once during their movement and that is a 90 degree turn before the move. When coming in from reserves, you choose a direction you want to come in from and you have to move straight forwards. No pivoting at the end of your movement to get better shots.


The weakened wraith squad (with only 3 guys left) go after the tyrannofex. The larger unit (with 4 models) go after his ymgarls and only move 6". Annihilation barges get out of the way for my command barge, who only moves 6" towards his flyrant so that I can assault it with my Overlord.


I make another mistake here. I forget that his flyrant swooped last turn and therefore cannot be assaulted. It's a good thing that Janthkin remembers as he points this out to me. So instead, I disembark my Warlord to go after his hive guards. My strategy has now changed from killing his flyrant to stopping his hive guards from shooting down my wraiths and vehicles.


Onto shooting. Combined shooting from the 2 annihilation barges kill 7 gargoyles. That number may seem low, but that is because one of the annihilation barges moved 12" (cruising speed). If a vehicle that is not fast moves at cruising speed, then it can only fire its guns in Snapshot mode, meaning it will only hit the enemy on 6's.

In other shooting, I believe my night scythe only kills only 1 genestealer due to re-rollable armor saves! WTF!?!


With my shooting done, we head onto assault. The wraiths charge his ymgarls. Because they only moved 6", I get to use my Hammer of Wrath attacks as well.


The smaller wraith unit charges his tyrannofex. They don't get their Hammer attacks because they had to move as jump infantry.

My Warlord assaults his hive guards.


And so does my other Overlord.


Wraiths kill all but 1 ymgarl. Damn Fearlessness! He (the lone ymgarl survivor) would have been dead due to No Retreat if this was last edition.


Mindshackle goes off but fails to wound his hive guards. My Overlord then kills 1 hive guard and put 1W on another hive guard. They are ok as they are within the tervigons synapse bubble.


Wraiths roll poorly as well against his tyrannofex and only manages to wound it once. Fortunately for me, his t-fex fails that single save. Finally, something goes my way.

Last but not least, I believe my Warlord maybe kills 1 hive guard only.

Overview of the top of Turn 3.


As he is now within 3" of the objective, we roll to see what Mysterious power it has. Janthkin rolls a 5 and gets Scatterfield - +1 cover save to the unit that controls the objective. By the ways, this bonus is cumulative with both Stealth and Shrouding.


Tervigon spawns his first and only unit of termagants (he rolls 4, 4, 5). The tervigon then FNP's them.


His unit of 20 termagants then go after my Warlord. BTW, they are in that blasted 3+ cover ironbark forest!


Tyranid movement. His gribblies go after my wraiths.


Stealers go after my Overlord to the right.


Flyrant swoops behind the annihilation barge.

Janthkin makes a mistake here. In swooping mode, his FMC can only turn 90 degrees and then must move in a straight line (just like flyers). However, he did a 180 turn after his swoop move.


His flyrant then shoots my skimmer in the back. He gets 2 glances and 2 pens. Luckily, I make both of my 5+ jink cover saves on the 2 pens and only lose 2 hull points.

Note - skimmers have the Jink special rule. In any turn that they move, they get a 5+ cover against shooting.


Termagants and ripper swarms then combo-charge my wraiths locked in combat with his last ymgarl.


Gargoyles and the Parasite assault my other wraith unit as well.


Termagants charge my Warlord Overlord....


....and genestealers jump my other Overlord.


The results are devastating. Stealers wipe out my Overlord and then consolidate 6" to prevent him from returning via Ever-living.


Here, termagants cause 1W and my Warlord kills 1 hive guard.


The Parasite and gargoyles win combat here by 3, killing 1 wraith and putting 1W on another. They don't even suffer a single casualty.


Finally, my wraiths kill off his lone ymgarl and a couple of ripper bases. In return, he wipes out my wraiths.


Termagants and rippers then consolidate into the forest as much as they can. Also, if you notice, his termagants are within 3" of the objective, thus giving them +1 cover. Along with the 3+ cover from the forest, you're looking at 2+ cover for the gants again!!!

Overall, not a good turn for me at all. The only thing to go my way was my annihilation barge not getting wrecked by his flyrant.

So I've lost 1 Overlord and the other one is tied up in combat with termagants probably for the rest of the game. I only have 2 wraiths left out of 15. Janthkin basically has almost his entire army still intact.

Flyers, I really need you to come in this turn.


At least they both come in.


The other scythe from reserves heads towards his stealers.


Out of desperation, I disembark my Immortals to try to take out his scoring termagants.

What I failed to realize, however, was that the closest termagants to my immortals were the ones in the forest with 3+ cover. I also forgot about the objective giving them +1 cover. Basically, I didn't realize it yet, but I would be firing at termagants with 2+ cover!!! And here I was thinking that I was going to wipe them out.


My annihiliation barges move away from his flyrant. However, one of the barges immobilizes itself in the iceblood pool near the objective!!!


My command barge moves towards his ripper swarms.


Wow...in shooting, my night scythe only kills 1 genestealer (and without the re-rollable armor buff)!


Thanks to 2+ cover, his termagants survive shooting from the immortals and 2 night scythes, though they do lose 10 gants.

I'm making mistakes all over. I could have easily mitigated the 2+ cover by either 1) shooting with my other scythe first at his termagants out in the open to hopefully kill enough gants and take him out of the +1 cover range or 2) Focus-fire. But alas, when we were playing the game, I was not aware that you can do focus-fire.

As if things weren't bad enough, one of the tesla destructors arcs and hits one of the night scythes (with warriors in it) and glances it twice, stripping it of 2 hull points!!!


My command barge then charges the rippers and insta-kills 2 bases with its Hammer of Wrath attacks.

Note - chariots can still charge for the D6 S6 Hammer of Wrath hits even if there is no rider in it.


In combat, wraiths put 1W on the Parasite and kill all but 1 gargoyle. In return, they take 1W of damage.


My Overlord kills another hive guard but takes another 1W from the termagants.

This turn I was hoping to do a lot more damage than what I actually did. I thought that I could possibly wipe out his termagants and ripper swarms as well as kill a few more genestealers. Instead, he's still got all his scoring units and I've also hurt my own transport. Now I've really got my back up against the wall.

Rippers go after my immortals. Termagants stay under the shade in the forest.


Tervigon moves forwards. Genestealers go and take another dip in the iceblood pool.


Flyrant swoops after either my command barge or the damaged night scythe.

He then decides to shoot down my damaged scythe but fails to glance or penetrate it.

Hive guards try to shoot down the other flyer (with warriors in it) but fail to hit.


Scarabs charge my immortals. Overwatch fire by the immortals kills 1 base. I then kill the last ripper swarm in combat.

Note - Overwatch is a new feature of 6th edition. Basically what it is is that a unit who is being charged can shoot at its attacker before they reach combat, though they do so at Ballistic Skill 1 (Snapshot mode).


In assault, the combat rages on as the Overlord kills 2 termagants and puts 1W on the hive guard.


Finally, the Parasite kills off both wraiths. One of the wraiths then spawn another 6 ripper swarms! That's another 18W of models that the Parasite has just generated!

I have a plan to try to get the draw.


The immortals re-embark back onto their transport and all 3 scythes move off the table. Because they are in Ongoing Reserves, they will automatically come in next turn.

I make a mistake here. At the time, neither Janthkin nor I was aware of it, but it wasn't until some time after the game that we found out that a unit cannot re-embark back onto a vehicle that is zooming.


My annihilation barge moves 12" and hides behind the LOS-blocking terrain.

Tip - you have to be careful when moving your flyers off the table, because if you have no more units on the board, then your opponent automatically wins. Thus, I hid my annihilation barge to ensure that I don't lose the game with my flyers in reserves.


Command barge goes after his Parasite and gargoyle.

If I can kill his Warlord - the Parasite - then I would get 1 Victory Point for satisfying the Slay the Warlord mission objective.


Shooting puts 2W on his Parasite. He takes 1W and then uses Look Out Sir! to transfer the last wound to his gargoyle, thus killing it.


My command barge then rams his Warlord.


I get 5 S6 Hammer of Wrath hits and kill him, thus giving me 1 VP.


Ok, as you've all probably figured out my plan by now, I moved my scythes off the board in order to try to contest all the objectives next turn.



However, what I didn't realize at the time was this....


Vehicles cannot contest objectives!!!!!

Overview of the top of Turn 5.


As there isn't much for tyranids to do, they start going after objectives. Tervigon inches towards 1 objective and stealers the other.


His flyrant moves back in gliding mode.


He then shoots my command barge in the rear, taking off 1 or 2 hull points and destroying its gun (I did make 1 or maybe 2 jink cover saves).

Tip - tyranids got a slight boost in that now their AP- guns (the brainleech devourers) no longer gives a -1 penalty on the vehicle damage table.


Finally, the Warlord combat rages on. I kill another 3 termagants.

It is here in my Movement phase where I realize my huge tactical faux pas. As I am moving my flyers towards the objective, Janthkin goes, "You do realize that vehicles cannot deny objectives, right?"

"Ehhhh....oh sh*t! Really?" *checks rulebook*

At this point, there is nothing I can do really. I've already committed myself last turn when I moved my flyers off the board. Now I'm forced to adapt to the situation and pray for a miracle. And now, I've got to disembark and expose my troops.


1 scythe comes in near his flyrant and drops my warriors off on the objective. By the ways, I believe that this is the objective that does nothing.


My damaged scythe goes and drops my warriors off at the upper-left (from my perspective) objective. My annihilation barge also moves there as it is a secondary scoring unit. I should have turned the AB around so that I can shoot at his flyrant, not that I was expecting to really do anything to re-rollable 3+ armor, though I was concerned that had I done that, that might have taken the barge out of claiming range of the objective.

So now I have troops on both objectives. This gives me some redundancy should he move his flyrant to try to take out a unit of troops or to contest.


I then move my last scythe towards the objective claimed by his stealers. I drop off the immortals.

Note - when you move at combat speed (that's 18" for flyers and 6" for others), you can then disembark your guys 6" away from the access point of your vehicle. However, if you move at cruising speed, then you can't disembark at all.

However, necron night scythes have a special rule that allows them to disembark even after they move 36".

Command barge moves and gets ready to charge the genestealers if necessary.


Immortal shooting and the night scythe tesla-destructor then kills off 9 stealers, taking them off the objective and giving it to my immortals.


Annihilation barge and warriors fire at his flyrant and strips off 1W.

Note - we forgot to test for Grounding for the flyrant. Basically, if a FMC that is swooping suffers 1 or more hits, then there is a chance for it to take a S9 hit and be assault-able by ground forces.

Night scythe then fires at his ripper swarms and insta-kill 4 bases.


Last but not least, in combat, gants finally overrun my Warlord. They consolidate such that I am not able to come back and my opponent gets +1 VP for killing my Warlord.


--------------------------------------------------------------



Currently I have the upper-left objective.


The lower-left objective is contested by his flyrant.


The upper-right objective is controlled by the tervigon.


And finally, my immortals control the bottom-right objective.


So I have 2 objectives to 1 (each objective = 3 VP's). My opponent gets +2 VP for slaying my Warlord and also for first blood. I get +1 VP for slaying his Warlord. I also get another +1 VP for killing his tyrannofex (because in this mission, Heavy Supports are scoring and worth 1 VP each). I don't believe either of us gets the bonus for having a denial unit in each other's deployment zones (though we didn't really check to see if his tyrant or my annihilation barge were actually in each other's deployment zones).


Despite the pummelling that I've been receiving, I am actually winning at this point 8 to 5. Now all I need for the miracle necron win is for the game to end before he wipes out all of my troops next turn.


We roll to see if the game continues and....

I roll a '2'.

Game ends!




Minor Victory to the Metallic Dead - Necrons!!!



Aftermath of our battle.



Coming up next - Post-Game Analysis....

Necrons:
I'm going to split this up into 2 sections. The first part will be my analysis of the game. The 2nd would be an evaluation of 6th Edition so far.

Analysis of the Game - How Necrons Were Able to Pull Off the Win.
The outcome of this game was totally unexpected for me. Yes, I did expect to win the game. I also expected to possibly dominate Kevin's army. What I didn't expect was to be dominated by his army....and then to be able to still win the game! There was a couple of factors that should have led to my downfall:

1) The Mysterious terrains. Their impact on the game was huge. Originally, I was planning on killing off his flyrant and genestealers first. You know, eliminate the biggest threats and then it would be an easy game, right? Wrong. Now with re-rollable armor saves and the fact that they were both supporting each other - daring my wraiths to charge them - it would be just too inefficient to try to kill them off, especially with a portion of my army in reserves. Thus, I had to scratch that plan.

Then I was thinking about shooting down his support units (gargoyles) and his ability to hurt my transports (the hive guards), Hello, 3+ (2+ with Night-fight) Ironbark cover! Now I couldn't even do that! Thus, I had to change my strategy yet again.

Basically the only way to kill his units (his gargoyles) was to combo-assault them with my command barge and wraiths. And then both wraiths fail their charges....

2) Inexperience with the rules. Had I been better versed in the rules, I wouldn't have made some of the mistakes that I made. While most of my rules gaffes were minor, 2 were major mistakes.

- Had I been more aware of how models were removed, I would have went after his termagants a little differently. I would have shot at the ones out of cover first to get them away from the objective cover-buff (Mysterious objective which provided +1 to the unit's cover save).

- I should have taken advantage of Focus-fire had I remembered about it.

- This one was a "cheat" mistake because we were not aware of it at the time, but I shouldn't have been able to embark onto the night scythe with my Immortals. How that would have affected the game, it's hard to say. With a veil-tek (Cryptek with Veil of Darkness), I could have still moved my immortals almost anywhere via teleportation.

- This rules gaffe was made by both me and my opponent and it ended up hurting my opponent more than it did me. We both failed to realize that Heavy Support choices were worth Victory Points in this mission. Fortunately, killing his tyrannofex was part of my "new" strategy and I was helped to it by my opponent forgetting about Mindshackles on my Overlord. On the other had, had my opponent know, he probably could have gotten 2 easy VP's by going after my annihilation barges.

- Finally, the huge mistake that I made was in thinking that I could deny objectives with my flyers! This could have been disastrous for me, and if Kevin hadn't said anything, I would have probably looked like the biggest fool on dakka. Lol. Just for this, I should have lost.


Now despite the beating I was taking and all the mistakes I made, I was carefully laying out the groundwork for a possible comeback win or draw. From my own experiences as a tyranid player, I knew that mobility was a weakness of theirs. Other than the flyrant, ymgarls, the gargoyles and outflanking stealers, my opponent didn't really have much mobility. And because he deployed his genestealers already, I knew exactly where they were and could use that to my advantage. Thus, a new strategy formulated in my head.


1. Go after his mobile units. His genestealers supported by his tyrant was just too dangerous. If I could get off the charge against them with multiple wraith units, I could probably win. However, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do so, so I had to find another way to deal with them (see below). As for his ymgarls, I knew they were going to come after me and that there's nothing I can really do about that, so no use worrying about them. Now the flyrant, I had to make a tough decision regarding him. I felt that it would take just too much firepower to shooting down a swooping flyrant with re-rollable saves and thus, I just decided to ignore him as well. So the only unit left that I wanted to go after....that I could go after....were his gargoyles.

2. Dealing with his deathstar - the genestealers. Now I know that if I didn't get the charge off against them, I wouldn't be able to beat them. I also knew that I wouldn't be able to get the charge off them, at least not on the 1st turn and probably not before they charged me. Also, his stealers were getting re-rollable armor saves as well as FNP. So instead of fighting them, I decided to throw them a "distraction" unit - my Overlord. I moved him as far away from the action as possible in order to draw his stealers away. I knew he would go after my lord because if he hadn't, I would have went after his tervigon next turn. Thus, I essentially took them (his stealers) out of the fight and out of position, though it would cost me my Overlord.

3. Take out his ability to hurt my flyers. Basically, he only had 4 units that could damage them - flyrant, 2 hive guards and the t-fex. The flyrant was just too tough to take out being hit on 6's and with re-rollable saves so I had to ignore him. Janthkin helped me out a little by sending his t-fex after my Warlord. After that, I knew my wraiths could finish him off so I sent my lords after his hive guards. And while I didn't kill his hive guards, I did manage to prevent them from shooting for most of the game. And although the far-right hive guards could shoot after the stealers "rescued" them, they didn't have many targets as they were way out of position.

4. Utilize my main advantage - my mobility. Even though my initial plan of contesting the objectives was flawed, what saved me was the ridiculous mobility of my flyers. Sure I couldn't contest, but I could still make it to the objectives. Now it just became a matter of trying to dislodge at least 1 of his scoring units off of an objective....and then pray that the game would end.


Thoughts on 6th Edition.
So far, I like the new rules. It will take some getting used to, but I think that is normal for any new major rules changes. You just need to spend the time to "re-learn" the rules. Now keep in mind that the following opinions are just mainly my personal beliefs and preferences. Don't take them as absolute truths and please don't take offense if my opinions are different from your own.

Some of the things I like about the new rules are:

- The de-emphasis on mech. Mech was much too dominant in 5th to the point that it discouraged foot lists and variety. Well, now that mech is no longer king, I'm hoping to see more players try out a wider variety of different builds. Not only that, but I'm hoping to see people try out different armies that don't really rely on mech - armies such as tyranids, daemons and other foot-infantry builds. Hopefully people can get a glimpse of their potential in this game. Here we have tyranids, who many actually thought got worse in 6th, not only be able to compete, but to be able to dominate one of the more powerful armies in the new edition - necrons.

- Flyers. Flyers are awesome! Both vehicle flyers and flying monstrous creatures. They are strong....maybe even a little too strong against some armies....but they bring an element to the game that just opens up the game, both in terms of variety and in tactical challenges. They are a breath of fresh air. However, on the downside, you are going to see more and more armies migrate towards more flyer-based armies because they are a little too good. Also on the negative side, the meta has just shifted from mech to flyers.

- Mission objectives. I like the fact that there are more missions now. I also like the fact that there is more than 1 way to win that mission with Primary objectives and Secondary objectives. And the fact that so many missions are objectives-based will hopefully force people to build more balanced armies that can not only shoot or assault, but takes into consideration mobility as well.

- Removing the closest models. I actually like this. It adds a whole new dimension of tactical play to the game. Now it does matter how you move and position your models. Sure it's more complicated and sure, it slows down the game, but over time, once people get used to the concept, I think it will be almost second-nature. While some may disagree, I think that if the game forces you to use your brains (and hopefully, doesn't confuse you too much), then I think that is a good thing, especially for players who want to improve their game.

But we were fortunate that we were only playing with simple, homogenous units. Once we start getting into more complicated, mixed-save, mixed units with characters, then that may become a different story. We shall see when we cross that bridge.

- Chariots are fun! There's nothing quite like running over the enemy. Unfortunately for everyone else, the crons are the only ones to have chariots at this time.

- Overwatch and Snapshot mode. I actually like these new rules, even though they basically benefit shooty armies only. The only thing is that I think they should give assaulting units a slight buff to offset Overwatch because as it is right now, there is no downside to firing in overwatch mode. What's more, overwatch may even actually prevent a unit from charging if they lose the closest model to overwatch fire.


Now some of the 6E changes that I'm not too particularly fond of:

- Random charge range - I am not a big fan of the random charge. Whereas before, charging was guaranteed as long as you were within range. Now charging is anything but guaranteed. 1 failed charge could potentially lose you the game. Personally, I am not a big fan of randomness because the more randomness you have in the game, the more you take the outcome of the game out of your hands and into fate. It's enough that you have to roll to hit, damage, saves, morale and random game length but now you have to roll to see if you can make the charge as well? I guess there is the element of risk to making the charge, but personally I would prefer the risk to be in your strategy rather than on pure dice.

- Fearless. The absence of No Retreat have made Fearless armies very good now. Almost maybe too good. I prefer it when there was a more substantial drawback to such a powerful special rule. I shouldn't really complain because this rule has just made my necrons, daemons and tyranids that much better....but I will because I think it unbalances the game somewhat. But I must admit, it's still early. Maybe the improvement to ATSKNF will balance out with the new Fearless rule. I just feel sorry for those armies that are neither fearless nor have ATSKNF.

- Mysterious terrain. I don't mind if the effects they have are relatively minor, but in this case, some of their effects can be rather game-changing. It's ok to include the Mysterious terrain but I think they should have toned this down a little.

- Flyers. These units are a double-edged sword. It's fun to run them (including flying monstrous creatures) when your army has access to them. It sucks to play against them when your army doesn't and you can't reliably take them down. There is an inherent unbalance to flyers that will make some games more of a rock-paper-scissors matchup and that, in my opinion, is not a good thing. That's just something you have to be aware of when playing your army....that some armies will have trouble dealing with flyers just because they don't have the tools in their codices to do so.


Tyranids:
Well, THAT was interesting. The entirety of my game plan essentially went out the window when we rolled up the random terrain, which was definitely a mistake on my part - I got too conservative at that point, and it led to some tactical mistakes. Not to mention the mistakes inspired by the new rules.

Here's what went wrong, in some semblance of order:
1) Misuse of the T-fex: This one was a rules mistake - at the time, I just completely forgot that he would be affected by the MSS of the Overlord on the CCB; I was too excited about charging a vehicle with him & hitting it really hard. In retrospect, this alone might have cost me the game - it would have been easy to screen him off behind termagants, and protect him. On a lesser note, I should have paired him more closely with the Tyrant; I'm not used to Preferred Enemy having an effect on shooting.
2) Misuse of the Hive Guard: While getting one or the other assaulted off the CCB was likely inevitable, there was no reason to allow it to happen to both units as early as it did. I was overly-dependent on the 3+ cover, and forgot the basic bubble-wrap philosophy that has worked for Tyranids so well since 3e. They were my best chance of dealing with the Flyers, after all.
3) Misuse of the Flyrant: Frankly, I'm just not sure what to do with him yet. Vector Strike is the best-available answer to Flyers...if you're in the right position to make use of it; and it's not really a "good" answer, either. Definitely some more practice required!
4) End-game Genestealer positioning: Not a lot that I could have changed here, but a note: in 5e, I could have arranged those 'stealers so that even the ones up front had 4+ cover saves. The "closest models die first" rule is going to take a lot of getting used to.

And in spite of misusing such a large portion of my army, I'm fairly sure I would have won had the game gone to turn 6. So, what went right:
1) Gargoyles! These are the champs - they soaked a lot of enemy attention, and still killed 2 units of Wraiths off. I'm not certain about the Parasite yet (yes, he made a lot of extra wounds, but those wounds didn't really accomplish anything), but Gargoyles are still a fantastic bargain for 8 pts/model, and a good answer to the random threat ranges of 6e.
2) Termagants: The end of "no retreat" takes these little guys over the top. They were already my preferred answer to 2+/3+ units like the Overlord or TH/SS termies in 5e; getting rid of "No Retreat" means that not only will they tarpit forever, they also have a better chance to eventually win. I may have to paint up some more - in some cases, they can take over some of the heavy lifting from Genestealers.

If I could stomach the idea of painting another 60 'gaunt bodies, I'd want to try out a Hormagaunt list. I think the removal of "No Retreat" was exactly what all Swarm-based Tyranid armies needed to really excel. They're also a good answer to Flyers - that many bodies can simply screen off objectives completely, and most Flyers don't have the firepower to dislodge them.