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So with the end of 7th edition, my friend seaphoenix and I have decided to give it one more massive game to really cut loose with our toys before we prepare for 8th.

This would be our second game, and some may remember our last game from here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/657540.page

With the game coming this Wednesday, there is less time for a deep narrative, but I think the size of the game itself, that is no big worry. No mission has been decided on yet, though we have both put together our lists, regardless of mission. I don't expect us to select a terribly complicated mission, given the size of the game and the general goal of having an all-day battle for fun. Either way, I think this will be just that, a lot of fun. But without further ado, the lists:

*Note, for the sake of not wasting time, we have both rolled up all of our random things. Warlord traits, psychic powers, etc, before the game. A game this size needs minimal downtime, and we don't want to be hmm-ing and ha-ing over those when we should be deploying and going.

Imperium


Tyranids


MISSION


Anyway, my pre-game thoughts regardless of mission are that this is going to be a tough list to fight. He has a considerable edge in psychic power, although I make up for that somewhat in psychic defense. I have 3 bubbles of anti-psyker going on (the Culexus, Sisters of Silence and their Rhino) and AW all over the place. That said, I'm effectively ceding the psychic phase for the most part. However, I think my units have an edge, so long as I can keep the bugs at arm's reach and avoid them getting all over me or bogging me down. I've got firepower galore from the Shadowsword and Knights, and the Tyranids do not have a great deal that can bust them at range. The Heirophant, sure, and the other shooty things like the Zoanthropes can make things hard for them. But my bigger worry is going to be the large templates and biovores, as I will have a lot of bodies on the table to be blasted off. He also has an edge with the void shields, however, I think I have a strong counter with the Scions, actually. The Taurox can kick out a lot of shield-piercing shots to break those down and open up firing opportunities for the big guns. Last but certainly not least are the GSC formations, I know how quickly they can get into an inconvenient place and their stubbornness to go away. I'm fairly confident my Sisters blocks can be used to clean them up, but I'm worried about doing enough damage to make them truly go away.

Until we select the mission, my battle plan is fairly set. The heart of the force is going to be the Knights, Shadowsword and whoever is with Celestine. Celestine will be kicking out the IWND prayer immediately from the gate, and serve mostly as a crisis response unit. I know the nids are going to be coming for me, so her job (as well as the Repentia) is going to be interposing herself between the shooty elements and fending off whatever gets through my firing lines while the heavy vehicles do the work of clearing out the big monsters. The Scions will likely be working the midfield, trusting on the mobility of the Taurox and their potential respawns from the Castellans formation. Lastly, the force going for the enemy backline will be the Seraphim and Legion of the Damned, who will be deep striking with an eye to blowing up biovores, and anything lurking behind the wall of bugs. Also, Seraphim are good at emergency response, dropping in to cook gaunts.

Priority shooting targets for me are, as standard for Nids, the synapse bugs. Cutting that off lends a huge hand, but that is not going to be easy with how many there are, and the Dominion spells all over the place.

Anyway, I'm sure seaphoenix will be around to give his thoughts. And I will also update the thread once we settle on a mission. The game itself is on Wednesday, and you can bet there'll be photos!

All depends who can down the super heavy and gargantuan first?

Looking forward to hearing how it goes!

I'm cheering for the Sororitas, as may be obvious from my avatar...

I voted for the Imperium on hope, meltas are good but not as much for all of those monsters! This will be an awesome fight though and look forward to the pictures and breakdown.

Big armies clashing! Got to love it.

So we have settled on a mission, and it is odd that as a Tyranid player I am the pseudo defender more then I am the attacker. My initial intent was to set up very aggressively, and since I have a very traditional swarm filled list with only a relative few big creatures, tie up all his stuff as quickly as possible. Instead I am going to be protecting a single space at the end of the game, and be forced to protect it at the very end of the game.

The hierophant is still a big target to shoot, and there really isn't much in the Imperial army that can take it point for point. Most of his weaponry at ap3 is perfect for taking out Nids, but the bio-titan shrugs that off like so much rain. Really melta, and D weapons are my biggest fear, and since there is no shooting D in this battle, I feel pretty confident that even if his entire army fires at the creature turn one, it won't go down immediately. As for offensively, it is worth every one of those more then a thousand points. Capable of taking a knight or even two in close combat, and putting out the rare str 10 shooting in a nid army, this is my anti-tank force.

The rest of the swarm will continue to act aggressively, as the nids truly believe that the best offense is a good defense. Creating multiple entry points on the field of battle will be important so that as the smaller creatures are re-spawned I can deliver them to where they are needed. With objective secured being a non-issue to the mission, I may shuffle the list just a little to get a couple of additional formations to maximize the swarms abilities.

Psychic domination will be a primary goal, taking out the sisters of silence and the culexus will be a high priority from turn one, that null zone is no joke, and even on a really big board, it allows for a lot of passive board control.

Genestealer cult is the wild card, this is the remnants of the uprising that would have drawn the Imperium to the planet in the first place. Led by their Patriarch, Magus, and Primus, this focused force can tilt the field in my favor, if they behave well. If not, then they will likely vanish beneath a wall of flame, and provide no actual support.

I'm excited to see how this all ends up.

Well, side note, I do have one ranged D weapon. The Shadowsword cannon is a D blast.

Anyway, the thread is now updated with the mission!

Ah, shadowsword, not baneblade. I was thinking of the wrong imperial super heavy.
Well, I will have to make that a bit more of a priority I suppose.

Well you don't -have- to... >.>

You might like it!

 curran12 wrote:
Well you don't -have- to... >.>

You might like it!

Paint a guardsman holding a sign out hatch
"this is not the shadowswors you are looking"

Day before the battle thoughts:

Interesting to note about the specifics of the mission, and how that will effect the overall game.
Tyranids have the final word on the game regardless, as the Imperials are going first. So once they have slogged through the Tyranid screening units and reached the button of doom as we come to a close. They tyranids will have an opportunity to destroy, and assault the Imperials away from the objective.

Second, the Imperials entire detachment will be on the field from turn one since he has no flyers. I think that will end up causing a lot of movement difficulties at the start of the game, and will really benefit the large number of blasts the Nids have. I think it will be interesting to watch the decision of how much to commit to the focused attack force, and what is held back in hopes of preserving a powerful shooting force.
Genestealer cults and other infiltrating irritations like the sporefield will have an even greater effect on the game I think. They will force the Imperial player to keep a counter attack force in his deployment zone lest a handful of lictors or genestealers wipe out his backfield vehicles.

Day before the battle thoughts, Imperial edition:

The scenario has been tying me up in knots. Normally, my strategy in games is to weather the initial storm of an enemy attack, and then retaliate, generally playing defensively or, at the very most, counter-attack minded. However, if I do that in this scenario, I'm assured a loss. This puts me out of my usual comfort zone, and forces me to think on how best to take and hold the middle of the board.

I'm thinking the spearhead of this force has got to be the Knights, kept close together for the improved ion shield, and with Celestine nearby to provide IWND, I feel a lot of pressure is going to be on the big guys to push the swarm back enough for me to get my infantry in position. I think if I can get a relatively intact Sisters blob onto the center, they will be hard to shift, but the hard part is getting them there.

The scenario also takes away my deep strike Seraphim (side note, not sure how we will do the LotD units), which would have been very strong in being a nuisance on the back of the Tyranids. Instead, I think their role is going to be the early rush, specifically hunting gaunts.

Picture dump from the apoc game, I will update around them to tell the story of the battle.

All right, a few things about this battle. The book has it set up so that you are running hammer and anvil. Looking at the two tables we were planning on using, we were intially going to have a 4X12 long table, but that as hammer and anvil would be crazy. Switching to Dawn of War deployment would have been another option, but that with the doom button only 2' 3" from the enemy means there would be no positioning, his whole force would go in the center, and then we might as well play on a single table. So with that in mind, we put the two tables together broadside, creating an 8' X 6' table. From there we decided to stick with the hammer and anvil approach. In retrospect, that ended up just being too far. Even with 24" deployment zones, that left his army needing to cover 5' of table to reach the button of doom. With a mission requirement that he have everything but his legion of doom on the table, that's a lot of slogging. In retrospect, we should have run it with the thick table as we did, but then played the 6' table side instead of the 8' one. Ah well.


Tyranids set up first, and being nervous about his first turn of firepower annihilating my forces, I really played defensively initially. I had three tyrannocytes, ravenors, mawlocs, gaunts and gants, flyers, and others all in reserve. This really limited his targets to things that were surrounded by the void shield, and a cluster of creatures I placed on my right.


So what does he do, he deploys all three of his super heavies on the same side as the void shield is not. Of course. That shadow sword rolled 6's to damage for all of it's D cannon shots. I'm getting ahead of myself though.


That shadow sword was pretty sweet. It definitely paid for itself in points a couple of times over. Had dice gone just a little differently, I think the Shadowsword would have been the overall mvp.


Celestine, and the three squads of seraphim were proclaimed as being the primary button pushers for the sisters. While he planned on pushing up with a handful of


This is the first half of the resreves that I had waiting for turn two.


Infiltrators were everywhere. The genestealer cult portion all came in for deployment, hoping on some sweet 6's, but not a single one. He placed the cullexus and the vindicaire in a tall central ruin, with a great line of sight on the whole battle. So I counter deployed by putting aberrants, genestealers, and a lucky group of neophytes with double shot into the same ruins. The hope was to get a chance to charge him, or let him charge me.


I considered keeping the hierophant out of the game to start. I was really concerned that he would somehow delete the big creature before it could have a chance to even play.


There are those neophytes I talked about. Spore field had mucolids and spore mines everywhere, as well as all my deathleaper assassin brood amongst the ruins. I hoped to give him too many infiltrators to deal with, so he couldn't whittle down the important things that were in my backfield.


Finally, time for the game to start. So first off he powered forward with a bunch of dominion sisters, which he used to blow away my lictors with their ignore cover skill. They succeeded, wiping both of them off the map.


On the other side. A similar force of rhinos filled with sisters zipped forward. An immolator unloaded some sisters to burn away at my genestealers. Invul saves really helped with that though, and I only lost a two stealers, between them and the fire from the culexus.


The knights followed by hosts of seraphim strode forward and attempted to pot shot my exocrine. Initial set up was good though, and between the cover, malanthrope, and some poor rolling, he still had three wounds at the end of the fusillade. The dimachaeron, was not so lucky. It took that Volcano cannon to the face, and just vaporized. That's what happens to the least painted of my models. Teach me to rush a model onto the table.....Wait, the Hierophant isn't finished!!


Time for the Nids to strike! Well, kind of. I'm an assault based force, with two thirds of my units in reserve. The spore fields and lictors jockeyed for position, creating threatening posture, without succeeding in doing anything due to infiltrate. 90% of the Genestealer cultists vanished back into the shadows, as none of them had rolled into really positive situations. The hive guard were well positioned at extreme range to the culexus, with the benefit of +1 shot from the container, and re-rolling 1's from the ammo crates. They succeeded, with two instant death wounds getting through invuls and removing the anti pysker extrodinaire. The Hierophant took a great big step forward so that it could take aim at the knight baron. It too was next to an ammo crate for re-rolling 1's. Psychic powers were underwhelming as most of the psykers were off the board this turn. A catalyst where it would have no effect was about it. In the center of the battlefield a mass of hormagaunts emerged from the escape hatch and established central board control. An ironic group of spore mines positioned themselves in front of the Imperial knights, daring them to cross their line. (silly rules that make that actually hem in the knights.)


The exocrine absolutely blasted the heck out of the star wars display visable to the left of the battle field. Hormagaunts sprinted forward, along with the malanthrope, old one eye, and some rippers. On a positive note, the exocrine healed a wound. For the grand finale a salvo of super spore launcher from the hierophant did work on the sisters clustered in the Imperial backfield. No morale tests went my way, but any dead sisters were a good thing. The main event with the bio cannons managed to cause 9 hull points to the baron knight. However he made every one of his shielding saves. Wanh, wanh.


Imperials struck back! The legion of the damned arrived. They whiffed on hurting the malanthrope and the other squad turned the exocrine into a pile of ash.


The legionaires were left to give the now riled up tyranids a dirty look.



Seraphim advanced with the goal of eventually claiming the doom button. Imperial knights lined up, unloaded and wiped out the void shield, and killed a hive guard. Stubbers and such wiped out the irritating spore mines that had limited their move previous turn. That evil Volcano cannon went off again, rolling a 6 against the hierophant, and causing 12 wounds. Lucky feel no pain rolls reduced that to 8 wounds, but the super bio titan was no super scared.
Elsewhere the Imperial line advanced, popping the avacado mimic commonly knows as a sporocyte. Mucolids were also a heavy target for the sisters, but all those that were killed came back.


Enter the Tyranids. With a comms relay and +1 on the reserve roll, I was not going to fail these rolls. Every model came in. A flyrant along each flank, the crone lining up to hit the Shadowsword. After last turn that model was my highest priority. Onrushing hierophants and rippers surrounded the legion of the damned. Believing I had an easy kill, old one eye and the malanthrope prepared to hit the second legion of the damned.


Tyrannocyte spores unloaded zoanthropes and a tyrannofex near the imperial knight. Genestealer cults rolled exceedingly well, bringing in the death star, a couple of genestealer squads, and the aberrants with an opportunity to assault upon arrival. Aberrants lined up on the shadowsword, while the super squad aimed for a knight.


Mawloc managed to wipe out half of the sisters of silence, and looked to be in good position to finish them off. The trygon prime placed his hole for future units well in the Imperial backfield. Those exorcists sure do look tasty. Outflanking termagants, deep striking mieotic spores and ravenors everywhere.


For some reason, now down to 2 wounds, the Hierophant retreated behind the void shield generator. On the right flank, hierophant and stone wrecker carnifex were now supported by a flyrant, malanthrope, tervignon, and the zoanthropes coming up the center. Shooting went very well. While much of the arrival fire had minimal impact, the hierophant picked up the slack, killing another half dozen sisters in two different units. Bio cannons succeeded in taking four hull points off a knight. The Crone glanced the shadow sword with both of it's shots, and a zoat warp lance removed 2 more. Electroshock grubs removed more hull points around the knights and amidst other tanks.


Old one eye and the malanthrope made their charge, and wiped out one legion of the damned model. Foiled! They returned in kind causing no wounds.


The other legionaires saw half their numbers fall before they punched a pair of ripper bases to death.


Overwatch was intense from the Imperial knights, but the death star, complete with Iron arm and warp speed on the patriarch made their distance. One blown up knight that kindly landed on the nearby seraphim squad, as well as two metamorphs.


The other super important battle. Well the hammers of the aberrants did their job, bodily lifting the shadowsword and throwing it, giant blast and all once again torching the star wars display. A genestealer unit charged the baron and took him all the way to 1 wound, in return he killed all but one genestealer, perfect for keeping him locked though.


Imperials hopped back into their immolators and zipped forward to push towards the button of doom. This is the beginning of us realizing that the long table has really put the Imperial army at a disadvantage. Seraphim are moving pretty slowly and the tanks are a couple of turns even flat out from the button of doom.


With one knight trapped fighting a stealer, and spore mines preventing forward movement to the second, the pocket titans have been re-routed in their goals. The non-baron knight turned and after firing weaponry at massed hormagaunts, and anti air at the crone to little effect. It charged and promptly punched the Mawloc back into the ground, at the loss of one hull point.
The sisters of silence and celestine also moved forward, but their bubble of psychic doom was still only forcing the nid psykers to spread out a bit.


On the rapidly folding right side, where lictors and stone wrecker had ripped apart tanks and repentia, the haruspex had eaten a damaged dominion squad and was left out in the open. Enter the scions. Fresh from their vehicles, the scions single almost turned the right flank by themselves. Plasma vaporized the Haruspex, a tervignon, and a tyrannocyte. Mucolids and spore mines in the area were also cleared, although once again two thirds of them managed their return rolls to continue the pressure.


A wide lens shot fo the Tyranids phase, Flyrants advanced, continuing to put pressure on the Imperials, and to bring their grubs into play against the massed right side tanks and scions. Hierophant having retreated had now regenerated 2 wounds and was ready to come back out to the battle. Dispersal of Imperial forces had finally effected the spore mine super launcher as it only knocked out a couple of sisters, and caused a couple of hull points here and there. Hormagaunts joined Old one eye and the malanthrope that were still struggling to kill legion of the damned. Acolytes from the genestealer cult joined the other legionaire battle. In the Imperial backfield the trygon prime was assaulting exorcists, ravenors were preparing to assault heavy weapons sisters, and the Imperium was nor being well rolled back towards their deployment zone.


The final step, the closest seraphim were wiped out, and the tyrannofex, zoanthropes combined to explode the baron imperial knight. Hive crone blew up one of the last immolator tanks with dominions, and those inside were assaulted by hormagaunts. With only one immolator two turns from the button of doom, we called it.

Final wrap up:
Well, the set up of the board I thought really benefited the Imperium initially. Cover would make a shooting gallery for the long range weapons of the Imperials, and if the tyranids exposed themselves, they would be away from the protection of the void shields. Instead the distance became insurmountable without deep strikers. Had we allowed the seraphim to sit in reserve, it would have been a different ball game. The genestealer cult was for sure the MVP of the game. As a whole on that second turn over half of the force rolled 6's to assault upon arrival. The aberrants put enough damage out on the shadowsword that the four hull points I took off previously were unnecessary. The metamorph hero squad deleted a knight, so overall 800 or so points killed 1000 points of super heavies.

Had the table been shorter 6' instead of 8' I think that also would have balanced the game better. Units would have been stuck in faster. Tyranids would have kept more models on the board from the beginning which could have died more, or assaulted more first turn. The many tiers of infiltrators and fast attacking models (hormagaunts) really slowed down the Imperial grind.

All in all a good send off for 7th edition. I look forward to seeing how 8th comes along, and especially how the forgeworld toys come through.