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Alrighty, I've been playing less than a year and this is my 2nd game with the bugs so I have two things to apologize for...

First, I proxied. And I mean it was silly proxy. The Flyrant was a Dreadnought, the carnifex was a dread with a green paint can cap hat, and the zoanthropes were terminators. This brought a few laughs as the carni was obviously a dread in camo. "Brothers! Om nom yes?"

The second thing was my hive fleet is snow based so they're painted white and for the most part the flash made them an incoherent blob on the pics. Granted that's the point of a horde to be of an indeterminable size but it's not so nice in a batrep. So with that out of the way here's the list:

My Nids
CC Flyrant - 265
leech and paraoxysm
toxic miasma
regen
wings

Prime - 105
lash whip and bone sword
s. talon
regen

2 x Zoanthropes - 170
spod with stinger salvo

1 x Venomthropes - 55

10 x Gargoyles - 80
sacks and glands

28 x Hormagaunts - 280
sacks and glands, 2 of 14

3 x Warriors - 110
2 with talon and deathspitter
1 with barbed strangler

Carnifex - 185
frag spines
bio plasma

total 1250

About half my points are MC and a third are troops and the rest special/strategic.

His Mahreens

Captain with power sword, plasma pistol and artificer armor

4 x Tac squads with storm bolter/power sword sarge, flamer, and plasma cannon

5 stock terminators

A dreadnought with a heavy flamer

total 1250

Pretty functional and they were able to bring the ruckus. He later wished he had more vehicles though.

So it rolled to be a C&C with pitched deployment. He won the roll and went first. He piled in 3 tac squads into the NW ruin, the dread behind it, the 4th squad with the captain near the center in Fountain Plaza and the terms in between. He put his objective in the ruin on the 2nd floor behind the tac squad there.



I put my objective in the SE ruin/column area and placed the flyrant and gargoyles there. Moving west a 14 strong gaunt, the warriors, the Carni in front of the venomthrope, the Prime and lastly right across from the NW ruin, the last 14 strong gaunt unit. The zoa with spod with be reserved to see where the dread was going.



Deployment notes

I think he really turtled well in that little area playing to his longer reach strength. I hoped to charge the left unit of gaunts into the ruins with the carni, the venomthrope to give cover and the Prime to keep it all together. The warriors were going to run with the other gaunts to the captain in the center. The flyrant and gargoyles were going to fly in fast and flank the captain / deal with the dread if the zoanthropes weren't there in the 3rd turn. I didn't have the troops to keep my obj. so I was hoping to contest his or drive him off it.

1st turn

I fail to steal and he went first. The term ran back and the dread toward the center Plaza. PC 1 got hot - saved, PC 2 - not in range, PC 3 killed 1 left gaunt, PC 4 killed 3 in the left gaunt group.

I moved up and the warrior barbed strangler killed a marine in the captain squad.



2nd turn

The dread moved toward the center behind the Plaza and the terminators SB'd a gaunt dead. (The venomthrope cover saved 3). Seeing the trouble this was going to give him he started concentrating fire. PC 1 scattered of the venom and wounded a warrior. PC 2 missed the venom and again wounded the warrior. PC 3 the venom saved and the warrior died. PC 4 got hot and killed the marine

On my turn I was super lucky. The zoan's pod gets in and only scatters 2 inches. I move everything up and the warriors shoot hitting nothing. The zoanthropes though...nail the dread penning a 3 and 6. Kaboom. The left gaunts are in range to assault the terms and kill 2. He swings back and kills 6. I take 4 fearless wounds and actually save 1 to stay locked!

Before the fearless wounds



3rd turn

The captain w/ tac moves to join the assault and the PC turn on the newly arrived zoanthropes. PC 1 wounds twice but they save. PC 2 actually draw a wound on each. PC 3...gets hot and dies The rest of the squad is in range to shoot bolters and does nothing. The captain w/ tac assault the lone gaunt and win. He was planning to consolidate back to the ruin 4 inches back and rolls a 2. He's just skirting it.

The battlefield





My turn and again I do some damage. I move everything up pulling the warriors left and giving the surviving gaunts synapse by way of the flyrant. The carni tries to bio plasma the terminators and fails. The warriors fire on a tac squad; the BS kills 3, the deathspitter 1 and he passes morale. The zoans actually pie-plate 5 and again he passes morale. The gaunts ran towards the captain through the abandoned Plaza but were short to assault.The carni and venom assault the terms and kill 2. The carni takes a wound and the assault is mine. The term sarge actually fails morale and falls back. I consolidate a mere 2 inches to the ruins.



My tactics at this point

I finally have everything right in his face and the flyrant with gargoyles are finally about to the action. I just need to push/assault him out in 2 turns of assault.

4th turn

The term sarge keeps falling back and the PC 1 kills 1 gargoyle (thanks venom cover) while PC 2 targets the zoan and bounces to and off the flyrant. The bolters however do kill a zoan leaving one with a wound. The captain's squad shoots the carnifex dealing 2 wounds leaving 1 left. Uh-oh he assaults and wipes out the carnifex. Once more 2 inches is the magic consolidation number. He just can't get that captain into the ruins...maybe he was following imperial fire safety regs

Forgot to take the pic

My half of the 4th turn was a moving up shooting no hit wonder
I did however make a huge mess with assaulting. The warriors ganged up and hit the capt squad with the Prime vs the Captain and the warriors on the tac element. The venomthrope went after what was left of a tac squad (5 man) and the gaunts assaulted another tac squad. This left just one squad on the upper floors of the ruin on the objective. The prime did 2 wounds on the capt while everyone else whiffed. He saved the fearless wounds and it was a lock. The venom though, hoo boy, did one wound to the tac and WON! Then they ran off the board on a high fall back. The gaunts gave 9 wounds to their assault and he saved all but 1. They returned 4 and I took 3 fearless wounds on top of that; locked.

Before the assaults



After them



5th turn

He started up with the term sarge running off, and the PC's scattering into empty table. He did manage to rapid fire the gargoyles dead. Then we realized we had been playing for 3.5 hours and it was really late. He asked if I wanted to start packing up and I said sure it was fun and a draw is still good.



" I've got an objective, how is that a draw?" I explained that he had started his turn and if we finished the assaults, on my turn (bottom of the 5th) I would jump my flyrant into the ruins and even failing the dt test survive to contest. Plus my zoa and venom can still close with the venom also in range to pull the tac down/away. It would have been another 30-40 min and it was just for fun as both of us were still getting used to the rules (he'd left in a previous edition and returned in 5th).

Results

So yes, we agreed to a draw and talked shop. Again turtling was the best option for him and forced me to run the gauntlet. I could have deployed the flyrant more to the middle but dangerous terrain and the unknown factor of the zoan coming in/taking out the dread were pushing him out farther to flank. His use of the PC sort of bombed in the first half when they got hot but it happens.

My units really worked together in pushing up, distracting target priority and swapping synapse when I pushed in the end. We agreed the MVP of the game was the Venomthrope. He hid behind the carnifex and gave cover to the gaunts, fex, prime and warriors. He soaked up lots of fire, killed the terms with the fex and ran off a tac squad by himself. He has a place in my heart.

2nd and 3rd were close with the zoans and the carnifex. The zoans came down on turn 2 right where they needed to be and scrap piled the dread, 5 term and distracted fire.
The carnifex pulled fire and got rid of the terms and pulled the captain out of his nice cover for the warriors w/ Prime to assault. He said the carnifex wasn't as big a problem as he had made it out to be.

I killed three units (dread exploded, term and tac ran off) and he killed three units (gaunts in term assault, the carnifex in captain assault and boltered the gargoyles out of the sky). I just wish we had a better grip of the rules so it didn't take 3.5 hours to get to the top of the 5th turn shooting phase.

I think I played as best was possible and he needed to concentrate fire on targets more. On the 2nd turn he aimed for the venomthrope but killed a warrior, then switched targets to the zoans and then again to the gargoyles in the end. Also, if he had dropped a tac squad, he would have the room for some metal boxes to mess me up. Still, twas all good fun and we will fight again in the future.

mrwhoop wrote:The Flyrant was a Dreadnought, the carnifex was a dread with a green paint can cap hat, and the zoanthropes were terminators. This brought a few laughs as the carni was obviously a dread in camo. "Brothers! Om nom yes?"

And people say that psychopathic walking robo-sarcophagi covered with guns would never be useful for espionage.

Excellent batrep, though I have to admit had this been me I would not have been able to take your Carnifex seriously. The dread with the paint cap on its head actually made me laugh!

I do have to ask, is there any particular reason he elected to take plasma cannons instead of missile launchers? He didn't need the AP against hordes of gaunts, frag missiles would have done just fine, krak missiles (or LCs) would have been a better bet against your MCs. He lost two marines to hot plasma cannons.

Also, what was on the dread's other arm? You said it had a heavy flamer, so that's what it's armed with on its melee weapon, but what was its main weapon? It's not clearly shown in any of those pictures.

I think he took PC to ignore my MC armor but the venom gave cover. I think that's why. Also the dread was standard with a HF so I think that's a MM? His list didn't mention any other points to it so I think it was a vanilla dread.

The Dread comes base with a MM but i think you have to pay points for a MM

Just looked it up; nope comes on a vanilla dreadnought and he paid the x points for a hf.

mrwhoop wrote:I think he took PC to ignore my MC armor but the venom gave cover. I think that's why. Also the dread was standard with a HF so I think that's a MM? His list didn't mention any other points to it so I think it was a vanilla dread.

PC isn't going to ignore your MC armor any more easily than a LC or a ML. ML is S8AP3, LC is S9AP2. I can't think of a single Nid MC that has more than a 3+ armor save. ML or LC definitely would have been a safer bet.

Also, yeah, vanilla dreads come standard with MM and SB, and you can switch to a Heavy Flamer for free I think.

The Hive Tyrant with the armoured shell upgrade and the Tyrannofex both have 2+ saves.

He chose what he chose so I just wrote it down. He scattered a number of times also.

Ah, I had made an 1850 list and will battle it with another proxy army so another batrep will be coming this week.

edited for grammar and 2+ models*

Night Lords wrote:The Hive Tyrant with the armoured shell upgrade and the Tyrannofex both have 2+ saves.

Alright, fair enough, but neither of those are on his list, and if they were, the LC is still AP2.