Been one week now, and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the little things.
When I was 8 years old, all I wanted in life was a pump actions 22, rifle. Well, my dad said he didn’t want me to have one of those so he agreed to purchase me whatever I wanted for the same price. I said, “Daddy, you’ve been a good father, and I love you for it, so what I’d like to do is invest that money, keep it safe, until I find something in life that sets my soul of fire, something that makes me want to spend that money.”
6 Years later I found Warhammer
40k, it was 2nd edition at the time, and the only store in the city that could get them was in a busy downtown area. My dad kept to his word, and we walked in and dropped $700.00 on what looked to be the best of all the armies, TYRANIDS…
I stopped playing for 3rd 4th and 5th, but with 6th (an edition I’d like to call 2.5 when you think about it) I’m back in business.
So this report goes out to my dad, Mike Scott, one of the best men I know.
My 3rd game and I know I have to be near the top, I’ve got two wins with a lot of
VP’s and a metric ton of
KP’s. My 3rd game is lined up for me to face one of the local
TO’s, obviously a quality guy who is running an army I’ve had 0 experiences against. Space Wolves, with Imperial Guard Alliance, a gun line to end all gun lines. The current
TO specifically spend a lot of time around us for this game.
THE MISSION
No specialty objectives, just one rule, starting for turn 2 at the beginning of your movement phase for every scoring unit you have within 18” of your enemies scoring edge you get 2 points. Denial units are worth 1 point.
Normally I’d be pretty excited, a lot of my army comes in turn 2 on a 2+ with Swarmlord; however my opponent informs me that with his army I have to add a +2 to all my reserve rolling. On top of that with some luck he could get the warlord trait that adds another +1. JFG….
Space Wolf Army…
… And please keep in mind this is BEYOND ruff, as I don’t know specifically what he was running.
Leader w/ Long Fangs attached, Two Divination Powers, One Lets squads re-roll misses?
Two sets of Space Wolves, one inside a Rhino, one inside a lemon Russ exterminator. Very cool tank!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MxfzBjrlmck/SLJkBpoi1aI/AAAAAAAAABk/yLs25fzDsik/s400/Montreal+252.jpg
Two squads of Imperial guardsmen, each with a Lascannon squad.
Another tank, basically a predator tank.
ANOTHER TANK, Demolisher.
Aegis defense line, with quad gun.
An owl, this little bugger got me good, nothing can infiltrate within 18? 24? Of this owl.
Anyways, I go first and for the first time this match I don’t get my turn stolen. I deploy my troops basically Tervigon with Gants middle left, Hive guard with Swarmlord middle right.
After that he places his aegis defense line (I think by the rules he had to do this before I did any deployment?) along the line closer to my Tervigon flank. The board is a very heavy ruins board, and with his aegis defense line he’s basically set himself up that I’d be in big trouble if I tried to march towards it.
My infiltrators were my plan to win this game, I was hoping to place Broodlord and Stealers in his wide open right flank and just score points. There isn’t a lot I can do for the first turn so I need to rely on scoring some points. However, with the only model on the whole right side his owl prevents me from deploying the stealers anywhere decent. I’ll have to place them back on my table side and try and get them in scoring range quickly.
Turn 1 and Swarmlord ups himself to 9-9 and has endurance.
Tervigon goes to cast Iron Arm, and I’m horrified when I find out I’m within range of some kind of special wolf, some kind of dirty wolf, the kind that makes you fail your physic powers. Sadly Tervigon sits @ 5-6, so I move him behind some cover and hope for the best.
My Hive Guard move forward and unload 8 shots into the front of his Demolisher, nothing happens, but he’s defiantly noticed the Hive Guard now.
Turn 1 Space Wolves and my opponent knows he needs to get some scoring, and he knows how to disable my biggest scoring chance. The Exterminator rolls up the side right flank, the rhino follows behind. The head of the Tervigon is showing just enough for the quad gun and long fangs to all open fire. This isn’t going to be good.
The Demolisher pushed out and heads over to take a template shot at the Hive Guard next time.
Combined shooting see’s the 5-6 Tervigon go down on the LAST SHOT not having Iron Arm really made the difference in this game. Even if he had been 6-7 I think he would have survived!
Any other shots are put onto the termagants and all but 4 die.
After turn 1 the loss of my Tervigon and seeing just how much firepower a Space Wolves army really does have is hard on my mind.
I step back from the table and notice I also forgot to move my Broodlord up the flank :@ That move will haunt me till the day I die.
As my opponent surveys the damage he’s done, slapping hi 5’s with the rest of the guys watching the game, my mind wanders, we’d been at this for 8+ hours now
.
Words of my father slip through to me.
“You’ve forgotten me son.”
No I could never!
“You’ve forgotten how you play, and so, you’ve forgotten me. Look inside yourself son, you are not beat yet. You are more than what this game is becoming; you must take your place in the winner’s circle at the end of the day.”
How can I do that, my reserves are only coming in on a 4+ and I forgot to move my scoring units!
“Remember who you are, you are my son, and the one true king……. Remember……….”
Turn 2 begins, and I need some hot dice rolls. He rolled his two squad carrying tanks up the Left Flank to unload and score some points, but won’t start scoring till turn 3, I don’t have any points at the start of turn 2.
In rolling ½ his army away to score points he’s weakened his gun line enough that If I can just land a could 4+’s I might make a game of this after all.
The twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turns.
Roll to see what happens, and if I can make a game of it.
Doom in a pod …… 5
Carnifex…….. 5
Trygon Prime….. 6!!!!
I can’t believe it. I think my dice rolls floored my enemy as well!
I drop Doom in his pod right behind the Quad gun, he’s in range of some heavy shots, but he can also hit a guard squad, and the Warlord and his long fangs.
Carnifex comes in behind the lines, his mission is simple, pop the enemy Predator tank, no matter the cost.
Trygon Prime tries to come in behind the lines but scatters 8 inches and ends up outside the aegis in front of the line and in
LOS of the tanks that had moved down field.
****Rules question****It says that if a Trygon Prime scatters on top of impassable terrain or another model reduce the scatter distance by the min required to avoid the obstacle… Because I moved through a building should I have stopped moving there?
Anyways, things a lot better for me then they did before.
Swarmlord goes 8-8 and continues down a basically open road, nothing can really see him except the Demolisher tank, and I know he’s going to use that on the Hive Guard.
The Trygon Prime puts his leader in SotW now, and will some shots into the gun line. His shooting does nothing sadly.
Anyways, shooting…. Dakka Carnifex unloads his fire into the back of one guardsman line, they elect to “get down” and take their 3+ cover saves. Even with the great saves, I’m able to wipe out 4 guardsmen and more importantly a las cannon team.
Doom’s pulses cause 2 wounds to the guardsman and yet again, I’m lucky enough that they take out other las cannon team! He now up to 6 wounds, and
St 6, but in a real dummy moment, I once again (like every game so far) forgot to fire his template His ST6 AP1 Blast probably would have done pretty good in this tight area, but it is what it is.
The pods ripper’s tent’s also take down the QUAD GUN!!!! WOWZA
Combined fire from the Hive Guard on the Demolish this time glance just 1 time, very bad rolls on that side of the board.
I don’t forget about my Broodlord and him and his stealers advance up the flank and then run as well. Swarmlord moves forward into what I think will be scoring range next turn but I don’t measure, and I’m making sure to get him close enough that next turn I can charge the demolisher.
All and all a great turn for me, my big creatures are in like flint, and I can get some scoring points next turn.
Turn 2 for the Space Wolves and my enemy has no choice but to move his Rhino and Exterminator farther away from the main battle to unload their units for scoring next turn and pop off some long range shots at the Trygon Prime. The rest of his army just reposition to fire at the monsters inside their lines. The Demolisher turns points its
ST 10 weapon at the 4 hive guard which had been pestering it for 2 turns!
Shooting from the whole army is about to go off when DOOM PULSES AGAIN!!!
The pulse does more good damage 4, wounds putting him @ ST10 with 10 Wounds. Ripper Tents slap out and keep 1 set of guardsmen grounded.
Combined shooting from the tanks that had moved and the long wolfs and snap las guns fails to kill the Trygon Prime!
The Demolished cannon comes around the corner and unloads a huge blast that hits all 4 of the hive guard.
In a truly great moment, he yells out “BAM ALL DEAD!”
I just smile and remove 2 hive guard, their T6 making me giggle.
In assault, his Sargent charges my 10 Wound Doom, and while activating his force weapon, instant deaths him as I fail my
Inv saves . Oh well Doom made a good impact.
Consolidation puts him still within range of some ripper action next turn.
Turn 3.
Scoring begins. I have 2 Pods, Carnifex within 18” oh his table edge, and it turns out I was, about ¾ of a base wrong on Swarmlord….. Yep, easily could have made it, just didn’t measure. So Swarmlord doesn’t give me a point.
Score -----= Tyranid 3
Space Wolves 0
I know he’s got ¼ of an army over in my deployment zone, but I’m just going to focus on wiping out the things I can. My stealers are closing in on becoming scoring units.
Swarmlord moves up to become a sure scoring unit, and gets himself up to 8-8 again. He can charge the Demolisher this turn, but the hive guard fire first, this time their money and blow up the Demolisher.
Carnifex shooting from the read detonates the Predator tank!
Trygon’s shooting does nothing and he is able to Charge the remaining guardsman and wipe out a unit. There is now just one unit of guard, that has 4 or so members hiding on a roof, they are very scared.
Space Wolf turn 3.
He has 2 scoring units within 18” of my table edge so gets 4 points
SCORE – 4 to 3 – Space Wolves in the lead.
He lines up his shooting from long range to make sure the Trygon Prime will fall this turn.
Shooting phase his bolter fire from across the map fails to kill the one drop pod so he is forced to use his tank to do the job. The Long Fangs finish Trygon Prime and the rest of the open shots go at the 4 termagants which were “Lurking”. With the 4+ cover save, all 4 survive a decent amount of fire!
In a dramatic turn of events the Sargent decides he’s going to cast a power, this is while Trygon Prime is alive, and with Shadow in Warp rolls 1-1-6. This causes his last wound and he dies on the spot :O
My Turn 4.
I get 3 Points again, 1 Pod, Carnifex and Swarmlord, now actually scoring.
SCORE.
6-4 (Tyranid in the lead)
Gene stealers and broodlord finally move up and get within scoring range. The hive guard now just moves forward to try and get some points. Swarmlord casts Iron Arm and gets strong still.
To be honest from here on out there are not many good moments, we’ve basically switched spots on the map, Carnifex deals with the remaining long fangs, and the Swarmlord never makes it into
B2B with anything as he fails a charge at the remaining guardsmen. Going first and with no long range I basically have to leave my scoring units where they are just hide from the small amount of fire they have left.
Sadly my 2 BIG BIG mistakes, and the fact that Trygon Prime scatted out of scoring, come back to haunt me.
Turn 4 gets him 4 more points making it 8-6, my turn 5 gets me ……. 6 …. 11-8 for me…. His last turn gets him 4 more and with that, 12-11.
Kill points I score another good load as does he. I think we were within 100 points of each other in
KP’s.
Overall a GREAT game. I can’t say I’ve had a more intense match thus far in 6th and really want to thank my opponent. He was not up to par on the Tyranid rules but didn’t hesitate to ask what he needed to and really explained a lot about the Space Wolves to me. With rules like “Re-rolling wounds on monstrous creatures and so many twin linked shots I was happy to keep it as close as I did.”
The first turn Tervigon dying, not moving my stealers ECT, stick out in my mind but I don’t mind losing such a good game, mistakes a part of battle!
So FINAL Standings.
My last opponent takes 1st place in
VP’s and I take 2nd place in
VP’s.
I also take FIRST PLACE in
KP’s! And get a nice prize.
Thanks all for reading, another tourney coming up soon; I’ll be sure to post more!
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
