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2016/02/22 15:41:29
Subject: 1850 ITC: Endless swarm vs Chaos w/brass scorpion
Another back in the saddle test run as I hone in on how I want the endless swarm to look. This time I'm gaming against a brass scorpion, likely supported by quad launchers and bunches of heretics. My opponent has a knack for rolling daemon saves too, so the scorpion is closer to the true terror that it should be. Previous game was at the potential 1650 that I think ITC will drop to, but this one we are going with the current popular points level.
Renegade Field Artillery Battery-30 points per model
4 Thuddguns- 120
Militia Training-10
LOW
Greater Brass Scorpion of Khorne-700
Allies:
Sorcerer-60
2 more mastery Levels-50
Troops
Chaos Cultists-50
Fast Attack
Heldrake
BaleFlamer-Free - 170
Heavy Support
Obliterator-70
two more -140
Mark of Nurgle-18
Pregame thoughts:
Spoiler:
So in my mind before I got his list I was thinking. Brass scorpion, that's like 700 points, he's going to have really low model count aside from the scorpion. I'll feed it some squishy units to hold it for a turn or two at a time and crush his other guys. Or he has the scorpion and 100 dudes, oh and thudd guns. I think the only chance I have of hitting his scorpion and taking it out, is to charge it with both carnifex's and the dimachaeron in a single turn. Piecemeal just ends up with dead MCs.
As to the rest of the army. While I will have to weather a turn or two of thudd gun fire, I should be able to get stuck in with the guard analogs and zombies pretty quickly. I can somewhat hide in close combat and sling shot my models up the board with any consolidation moves. If he has units stretched out in a line, I can use tricks like attacking an end, kill a bunch of models and then be unable to follow up. If I can make even rolls on units returning, I think bombs and swarm will eventually overload the heretics and kill them off.
Oooh, ITC poll came up with the new scenarios today, so we will be trying the adjusted maelstrom rolling, and the minor rule adjustments that are in place. Points value is I believe the only thing that could be effected by the poll itself.
Mission: ITC mission 5. (Modified big guns never tire.)
Board set up: Vanguard strike.
Deployment:
Spoiler:
Pyschic powers:
Zoanthrope-catalyst
Chaos sorcerer- prescience, scriers gaze, precognition, foreboding
Deathleaper has the mind eater warlord trait.
He got a trait that involved shooting d3 of his fellow command squad guys to make a unit not run. (so, useless)
This is the table from my point of view as I'm in the lower left corner, and he is in the upper right corner. My bunker is situated on my left flank, while his ruins are on the far right flank. There is a viable ruins complex in the center of the board, but there is a lot of open space I need to cover to reach him. I expect that I will need to do most of the forward movement (Except for the scorpion) His army is pretty static.
Chaos deployment:
I won the deployment choice and decided to go second. I wanted the final say at the end of the game on objectives, and I am hoping that he will bring the scorpion forward, and maybe even charge some gants or gaunts, giving me the chance to counter charge with my big ugglies. With 9 hull points I really want to get all three in at once to kill it.
This picture is into the start of his movement phase as the scorpion was located in that large section of open space on the right side of the picture. His line of zombies also was 6 inches back. On the right board edge was one unit of milita men with lascannons. The thudd guns with sorcerer were located in the ruins, the chimera has his warlord and command squad. The zombies stretched in a large line and the scorpion poised to push up the board quickly.
Tyranid deployment had as usual the dimachaeron on top of the bunker, carnifex's had good cover, plus the malanthrope, with the intention of movint up under that first block of ruins. I'll use gaunts to screen them for protection if he doesn't charge. At the top of the screen the genestealers are prepared to go assault whoever takes that objective number 2 of mine at the top left of the picture. Infiltration was limited as there was no real LOS blocking terrain to get close with. Instead I'll be struggling them all forward (Perhaps I should have deep struck them all instead of infiltrating.)
First turn:
Spoiler:
Mission:
With the new mission rules, you roll 3 dice then choose two. If you choose to take two similar (two objective/two kill a unit) you can try and score both to net 3 points, but if you fail you get 0 points.
Chaos: [1, 4, 6] 4, 6 (control my number 2, kill a unit)
Tyranids: [2, 4, 6] 2, 6 (Control his number 2 objective, kill a unit)
Chaos turn one:
As was apparent in the deployment picture. This massive monster came rocketing forward with plans of charging some beasties! The zombies moved forward to put claim on my objective 2, even though he didn't need it currently.
Psychic phase is actually pretty important for this chaos force. Prescience succeeded on three, and there wasn't much chance of me canceling it, so I let it go. (We played foreboding wrong, we thought it worked for both the psyker and his unit. However it is limited to only the psyker himself.) I saved my deny dice for foreboding instead, which with two success' I was able to cancel.
Shooting with the thudd guns was understandably devastating to my gribblies. A pair of genestealers, a couple termagants and half a dozen hormagaunts were felled. The ignore cover super shot from the scorpion scattered completely off the board and did nothing. Yay! The tail cannon managed to put a wound on the malanthrope at the lower side of my deployment zone.
The lascannons fired from both squads, but were unable to do any damage either through missing, or rolling a magical 1.
Assault did not happen. (I think it was a 16" charge.)
Tyranid turn one:
Everybody moves forward! Carnifex's go under the first piece of ruins, while the Dimachaeron jumps on top. Hormagaunts and termagants run everywhere, covering the board and doing their best to provide screens against the scorpion charging me without permission. The hormagaunts in the lower center of the board spread out and prepared to assault the scorpion.
My gaunts in a box popped out and created a conga line all the way back to the malanthrope, as well as moving up into the ruins directly in front of the zombies. My hope is that he will charge next turn, allowing both of our squads to tarpit the center of the board there. Then when the time is right I can strike with a bunch of attacks.
In the center I charged the scorpion with all of my hormagaunts, ready to send them to the slaughter. I managed a light roll on the charge, so only a handful of gaunts made it into contact. Four were squished out of hand in close combat attacks, then he rolled a fantastic 5 stomps. (This was a theme to the game.) Those stomps very happily thumped about the field and killed around half of the gaunts, but happily within synapse, they didn't care and simply piled in, only two making it into base contact.
Wrap up:
Chaos: 0
Tyranids: 0
Well, neither of us completed a maelstrom point this turns. Army is sweeping forward quickly, and I have captured the scorpion for a turn. If things work out in my favor with movement next turn I should be able to get all three of my big ugglies in combat with him. If the first one however rolls poorly, I'll start moving them away from the scorpion and instead use various gant squads to slow him down until I get the perfect chance to attack. Next turn the ravenors and hormagaunts at the top of the table should start coming in contact with his guys. I'm still one or two shooting phases from challenging the thudd guns though.
Chaos turn two:
Reserves time and the chaos brought their entire force to play. The heldrake came zipping in, slapping a mucolid on the way by. (It died, but is coming back.) Obliterators also landed directly on top of the objective in my deployment zone I was trying to control this turn. A small squad of cultists also walked on the board on the left center of his side, near ravenors, malanthrope and a couple squads of gribblies.
The heldrake then opened up with a blast of flame taking a wound off of both of the biovores.
Shooting from the obliterators caused two more wounds on the malanthrope, but not killing him off. Thudd guns dropped a ton of shredding twin linked wounds (Foreboding was used in the psychic phase and I couldn't stop it.) directly on top of the zoanthrope and some gribblies. Another five or six termagants, and an equal number of hormagaunts died. The zoanthrope who was the primary target of the shooting however was un harmed through a combination of most blasts missing him and making four saves.
The rest of the chaos shooting was ineffectual except for the dangerous cultists. They managed to gun down one of the ravenors.
Assault went as you would imagine, the Zombies assaulted the hormagaunts and caused a couple of wounds, losing some zombies in the process, everyone piled in and prepared to sit there for the next three turns or so.. The scorpion smashed some more hormagaunts and rolled high another 5 stomps on the squishing table. Pile in from the hormagaunts this time took them out of synapse range. (That's what I get for not running the malanthrope last turn.) The gaunts break (needing double 1's) and book it away from the scorpion toward my board edge. Scorpion rolls a 6 and moves straight away from the carnifex's.
Tyranids turn two:
Deathleaper appeared behind the artillery squad and prepared to attack the thudd guns, leaving me only one more turn to survive the blasts. A couple of mucolids popped in as well, but scattered far away from their targets, the lascannon militia. To pull off a three MC charge on the scorpion this turn, I needed the first of the carnifex's to make a 6" move through cover. So he rolled a 4. Time for a change of plan. The fex's instead moved towards the zombie fight, while the Dimachaeron jumped backwards towards the bunker so he could eat the obliterators. At the same time the malanthrope with 1 wound left ducked into the bunker to give himself a chance to heal. (yay regen.) At the top of the board my ravenors bypassed the cultists as the las cannon militia on the other side had crept a little too close. Termagants, the malanthrope and a squad of 4 hormagaunts moved in on the cultists.
Devourer fire killed off half of the cultists, thought they chose to stick around. A flesh hook from deathleaper killed a single artillery man.
Finally in the assault phase, the malanthrope tripped twice on the crater he was standing in, while both the termagans and the hormagaunts made it into combat with the cultists.
Having been unable to reach the Scorpion, the carnifexs made a great charge and managed to connect with the zombies. I had planned on adding the genestealers into this fight as well, but made a mistake and forgot to move them. They were at 13" still on their piece of ruins, doing nothing. You can see I created a careful screen with a squad of termagants, to protect the carnifex's from being charged by the scorpion next turn.
Much violence ensued against the zombies, The stone wrecker carnifex was barely kept in the fight by a single zombie who consolidated into him, while the other one was nicely in the thick of it.
The Dimachaeron also made it into combat against the nurgle obliterators. I got greedy and tried the grasping talons to gain the str 10 ap 1 swallow attack, and it worked. I managed to kill two oblits outright, and ate the third, providing the Dimachaeron with his 4+ feel o pain. He consolidated onto the top of the bunker for a 2+ cover save as well. (Malanthrope is inside.)
The cultists back up at the top of the screen were wiped out by the hormagaunts before they could even swing, both gaunts and gants walked up the board with their consolidation movement.
Ravenors assaulted the militia along with a mucolid. The mucolid ate the over watch to the tune of a single wound. The ravenors made it in as well. Mucolid killed three guys, and put a glance on the chimera. Ravenors slaughtered all but the lascannon teams, sergeant, and two buddies. The militia couldn't make base contact at their initiative step, so had no chance to swing. End of turn consolidation however made contact and kept them in combat. (The sigil all his units had kept them from running.)
Wrap up:
Chaos: 0
Tyranids: 2
There is one hormagaunt running off the board, and nowhere else did he kill off a unit that counts. (Mucolids and spore mines are never scoring or vps) He also had no chance of getting something to my deployment zone to score objective 2. Luck was with me however as the dimachaeron smashed the oblits and secured the maelstrom I needed. The cultists that came on the board provided me with an easy kill a unit as well, although the oblits counted too.
As to the overall picture, I think the scorpion is going to have a limited effect on the big ugglies this turn, he can't kill any of them outright and since he can't charge the carnifex's if he shoots at something else, I think they are safe. My only concern would be some kind of combined attack that wiped out the screening termagants, followed by the scorpion charging the multi-battle. Deathleaper is in a precarious position in the backfield, but it forces some awkward choices on chaos as pertains to shooting something with the thudd guns, or the remaining militia. The tide is slowly turning as my sheer numbers overwhelm his.
Third turn:
Spoiler:
Missions:
Chaos: [1,4,6] 4,6 (Control My objective 2, kill something)
Tyranids: [2,4,6] 2, 6 (Control his objective 2, kill something)
Chaos turn three:
I forgot to take pics during his turn apparently, but here is a wordy summation.
Movement was the scorpion coming a little closer to the termagants screen. The left flank militia took up positions to charge deathleaper. The flyer swept attack the dimachaeron on his way to BBQ the fleeing one hormagaunt. (He wanted to ensure that it died and gave him the maelstrom.)
Psychic phase was next, prescience on the thudd guns, failed. Super foreboding, I canceled. Force for the sorceror, failed.
Thudd guns targeted some termagants and scattered entirely off the board I believe. (They may have hit something, but I just don't remember.) Snap firing las guns from the militia caused a wound on deathleaper, the command squad caused another one. The multi laser on the chimera insta killed a mucolid in the open.
The all important scorpion took a wound off the dimachaeron with the huge cannon, but failed to damage the bunker he stood on. Tail gun caused a wound to the zoanthrope, and while the flamers killed a handful of screening termagants, it was not enough for the scorpion to assault the zoanthrope. There was just enough pinch that he couldn't make it through the space.
In the assault phase the ravenors took the militia down to only 2 guys, but again the sigil prevented them running. In the zombie fight, the bio-flail carnifex killed enough zombies that he freed himself. (He was just short of making base to base consolidation with a nearby hormagaunt. A huge 6 on consolidation allowed him to make it through the ruins and towards the enemy chimera. Yum, carni-snax.
Tyranids turn three:
Needing his objective 2, the dimachaeron and a squad of reduced termagants moved to claim the marker. A skimming flyer is the only thing that could take that away from me. Which would result in my dimachaeron charging and destroying it likely. The zombies were my target for killing something, so the genestealers, and the termagants moved up to do battle.
Tyranid shooting was once again underwhelming, but that isn't the primary focus of this army. Deathleaper charged the artillery squad and called out the sorcerer. Four wounds, one of them a rend, the sorerer and a pair of artillery men were felled. They were unable to cause a wound in return, but they did not run.
The carnifex smashed into the chimera, crushing it on the charge, but not causing an explosion. Termagants joined the ravenors, but were not needed as the militia were eaten by rending attacks. Genestealers, hormagaunts and the other fex smashed zombies left and right, leaving only one in the ruins near the center of the board. Genestealers and carnifex were unable to make contact with someone in the fight, so all consolidated, taking control of my objective 2 in the process.
Wrap up:
Chaos: 1
Tyranids: 4
The tide has turned, unless the scorpion can really pull something out, I have control of objectives all over the board, I have reduced him to two units trapped in combat, and a command squad. Even if the scorpion kills most of my remaining stuff, I think I will manage to win the game on maelstroms and primary.
Fourth turn:
Spoiler:
Missions:
Chaos: [2,5,6] 5, 6 (Kill something twice)
Tyranids: [4,5,6] 5 and 6 + (Going for three I need to kill two units)
Going big in this one, I'm gonna try the super score by killing two units completely. I've been averaging two units a turn since I made contact with him, so I think I can pull it off.
Chaos turn four:
The scorpion moved towards the left flank ruins and promptly toasted the mucolid and screening termagants in the way. His big blast scattered off the table, and his tail gun established the bio flail carnifex as his target. Scrambling through and over the chimeras hulk, he made contact. Hammer of wrath did nothing due to armor save, and reduced to initiative 1, the scorpion got slapped first. Three massive hits and an explosion later, the scorpion had lost 3 hull points. It swung back, pulping the carnifex before he could get around to stomps. The scorpion scrambled backwards up onto the ruins in his consolidation.
Deathleaper was charged by the militia as well as the artillery men, his swings targeted the artillery unit once more, eating through another 4 models before everyone swung on and missed him.
Tyranids turn four:
Likely to be the big final turn, the hormagaunts made a long loop around the scorpion, getting themselves in position to make a long charge into the artillery guns. I can't swing at the artillery itself, but by making contact, they can swing at the gun men. Ravenors also moved up to plan a charge on the militia men hopefully, but could divert to the artillery guys if needed. Termagants got ready to shoot at the command squad and charge them after. Finally, in a winner take all bout, the wrecker-fex lined up a charge on the scorpion, hoping to take out the rest of those hull points.
Termagant shooting killed half the command squad and forced them to run. Directly in front of the same gants, so they can charge them.
Hormagaunts also made it into combat, stubbing their toes the first time before fleet brought them up over the edge of the ruins and into combat with the artillery squad. I charged the termagants into the command squad and they made it.The ravenors charged and made it into the artillery men, but couldn't reach the militia where they were really needed.
Carnifex rolled big and made it into the scorpion. Can he take him out?
Termgant fight with the command squad, the leadership roll to see if the command squad sticks around. Failed! Why didn't I do that before I charged the ravenors? It would have been a clear shot. Oh well, warlord achieved there.
Deathleaper slapped a bunch of militia men, but the one lascannons and a sergeant survived. Artillery and militia were able to swing next (my other nids had charged through terrain.) They managed to cause the one remaining wound on deathleaper. Argh, warlord to him. Ravenors and hormagaunts then floored all the artillery men to bits.
The big carnifex bought! Two hammer of wrath caused another three hull points of damage with an explodes result and a saved hit. The scorpion swung....and whiffed most of his attacks! Two wounds caused there. The carnifex swung his might wrecker claws....and also whiffed, only two hits connect, one of them is saved, the explosion result is.....2 hull points off. The scorpion lives with 1 hull point! (There was a moment earlier in the battle where I had a chance to assault the scorpion with a bunch of bombs and was like, pshaw, one hull point will make no difference.)
5 stomps and a couple of 6's the carnifex was no more.
Wrap up:
Chaos: 3
Tyranids: 7
I left controlled all 3 of 4 objectives at the end of the game. Malanthrope and biovores had my number 1. Dimachaeron and some gants had his number 2, genestealers controlled my number 2, and the hormagaunts were happily contesting the scorpion for his number 1. We both had warlord, but I had ground control and line breaker, while he didn't.I also one primary and secondary. If there were another couple of turns, there was nothing I could really do to the scorpion and he would have cleaned out that corner, however that only would have given him one objective.
Fifth turn:
Spoiler:
Game is done.
Chaos turn five:
Tyranids turn five:
Final thoughts:
Spoiler:
Sweeping victory for hive fleet Physallia!
There was a point there second turn where the scorpion was starting to wreck things and my big ugglies were spread out or trapped in combat that I thought it was going to take over the game single handed. Numbers and speed won out for me though, and aggressive play on maelstroms worked in my favor. Sacrificing a unit to hold up super heavy walkers is just a part of the game for bugs, and if you don't have that perfect set up for the charge....bug out (heh heh) and do something else.
ITC poll says we are staying at 1850, so this game is a good start point for editing my forces. While synapse units are safe due to the speed and in your face threats of the army. (Hard to shoot those in cover bugs with a lot of wounds when you have a swarm ready to charge turn two.) Four is really the minimum, and once again the ones I had just couldn't keep up with the army. It doesn't help that the table ended up more like hammer and anvil then it did dawn of war. All right, time to break it down.
Deployment:
I generally liked my deployment, The fast moving bugs were able to get up the long side of things and get stuck in pretty quick. Some of that was helped with sling shot close combats, but the ravenors in particular continue to surprise opponents. I don't think I used the spore field very well. Usually I can find some terrain where I can secrete away the spore mines or a mucolid that is much closer to the enemy. The way it worked out with the terrain, there was no safe place to put them. I should have just deep struck them on turn two and been able to throw them directly into his face. This would have caused quite a bit more confusion on turn two.
First turn:
First turn there was not that much difference that comes around for the army. I think the big one was missing the run move on the malanthrope. If I had been able to get him or the zoanthrope into synapse range I would have trapped the scorpion there for another turn, making it easy for all three of my big ugglies to assault him. I also kept the warriors very reserved, and I used the genestealers in too reserved a fashion. They could have shuffled forward and have had couple extra inches of movement for a potential charge turn two, while sitll maintaining cover.
Second turn:
Charges everywhere! I got a lot of charges in, but because of the way I deployed the bombs, none of them are doing much. Charging into the scorpion would have been a fine idea, especially for the bombs that would have been hitting it on rear armor. Adding genestealers to the zombie attack would have been a good idea. They were in a good position to hit right where objective number two was, clear out a bunch of zombies and end with only one in contact if any. This would have prevented him from having even the one maelstrom he got.
Third turn:
At the end of this turn the malanthrope had made two regeneration rolls, so I should have popped him out of the escape hatch and sent him to help everyone else. As it was I could have moved the biovores over and up on top of the bunker, still claiming the objective and not needing to take a synapse check. While the dimachaeron helped claim the second objective this turn, it did not have to be there since the termagants claimed it as well. Instead I could have been running the dimachaeron up to support the rest of the army. At the end of my opponents turn I could have hit and run with deathleaper since he was down to one wound. He wouldn't have been locked with two units then, the artillery men had to move back to their weapons, and the militia would have been hanging in the breeze.
Fourth turn:
I made a mistake in the charging phase. If my opponent had rolled his leadership check on the running command squad the instant I made contact with them, they would have been eaten, and left an open lane for the ravenors to make it into the militia without traveling over the terrain. The Stone wrecker really had a chance to fell the scorpion, but he just couldn't connect. A pair of 1's could have been re-rolled had the malanthrope nearby been able to make it into the combat he stubbed his toe twice on.
Wrapping up:
A good game over all. This is the continuing points level for ITC. I think I'm going to look for some faster synapse that can effect the ground game. (Shrikes) Instead of the zoat. Also might experiment with the sporocyte. Rending claws and Adrenal glands to make more anti-vehicle power available. (I really wish ravenors could take biomorphs. The continuing trend with lords of war seems to be you can ignore them, just feed a couple throw away gant squads into them to slow them down a bit. Nice long conga lines is the way to go.
This message was edited 10 times. Last update was at 2016/02/28 03:49:10
~seapheonix
2016/02/24 02:46:31
Subject: 1850 ITC: Endless swarm vs Chaos w/brass scorpion
*bursts though room with axe* HEEEAAARRRS JHONNY!!!
Yeah, looked the the rengades list and it looked a bit.. All over the place? I would have left out the allies and just went with more rengades or take more daemon engines such as the Decimator imo..
Still though, nice to see satanic Starship Troopers
Spoiler:
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/02/27 19:58:50
@CKO While the scorpion did wreck face and do work, the nids did still pull out a sweeping victory. While I had little to stop the scorpion with, I was only one lucky mucolid attack from blowing it up. Or Genestealers on the charge with rending could have caused the one glance. His flyer was in a position that it had to become a skimmer, or fly off the table, and most of my guys were in combat.
Yep, Scorpion gets D3+2 stomps, so somewhere between 3-5. My opponent got 5 every single time. The 3" from blast border to blast border gives the stomps a lot of range.
Also, we did the scoring a little wrong I realized. We scored at the end of the turn, same as previous versions, and we are supposed to score and roll at the beginning of each individual turn. Allowing each of us to deny the other the point.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/02/27 21:41:31
~seapheonix
2016/02/27 21:44:20
Subject: 1850 ITC: Endless swarm vs Chaos w/brass scorpion
I hate when that happens I won a game of magic last night because my opponent told me I was using the card wrong and than next game I was told I was using it wrong, feels bad to win because of a technicality.
The difference would have been one more maelstrom for him.
Our other whoopsie was the foreboding psychic power. We assumed that it was shared to the whole unit (thudd guns getting twin linked and shred) While it was just a psyker only power. No malicious intent at all.
I find that nearly every game I play some rule is played wrong. Just what happens in a system with so many contradictory and unique rules and exceptions. It's just one of those variables that makes the game different every time.
~seapheonix
2016/02/28 01:22:46
Subject: 1850 ITC: Endless swarm vs Chaos w/brass scorpion
I think that's forewarning. I might have the names wrong, I rarely use divination myself. The only powers I usually see are the ignores cover and prescience.
Nope, I'm wrong. Precognition is the one. Psyker must re-roll misses and failed to wound rolls.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/02/28 02:38:06
Night Lords (40k): 3500pts
Klan Zaw Klan: 4000pts
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals