Captain Max LeMans, 4th company commander of the 64th Saumurian, threw his cigarillo with anguish. From the top hatch of his CCOM chimera, he could perfectly see the dark and threatening ruins of the little town he chosed to establish his defense perimeter in. On this forgotten world of Xanon II, he knew that nobody will remember what happened here. Three days ago, captor suddenly detected a furious tendril of tyranids coming right on the lone world. Captain LeMans received a report which announced to him the possible presence of force from mysterious Hive-Fleet « Grendel » in the sector. Too late, he had thought with disgust. With cold-blooded resolution, he organized the evacuation of scientifics and rare materials. But tyranids scout soon landed on Xanon and he had to fight with all his men to permit people under his protection to leave safely. Tyranids were far too much for the 4th company but he knew that no reinforcement will be provided by other imperial forces. To let a big part of his men the opportunity to leave also, Captain LeMans decided to lure the most possible tyranids out of the imperial base zone and to fight then in a no-man's land. With chance, he could do enough damages to weaken the xeno surrounding and disorganized them. He asked only for veteran volunteers, who knew how to fight the scary bugs, and selected as few support as he can rationnaly pretend, to let to the 4th company all its chances.
Sun slowly rose, as Captain LeMans heard the growling of the termagants and hormagaunts approach. He distinguished some very big creatures through the horde and he knew that the main difficulty stood there...
« Okay. Let's have some fries » Captain thought to give himself bravery.
« Prepare your heavy flamers, folks. It's time for BBQ ! » he shooted to his men in the comlink. ***
This is a game I had last wednesday morning, against one of my mate's Imperial Guard. And I did not play with my Sisters of Battle ! (He can't stand them anymore, I think...
) I am somewhat new with tyranids, so we decided to play a very average battle. We made 1500 pts army list, and then we rolled for objective and deployment. The result was : Annihilation and Pitched battle.
Once again, no photos but some vassals maps ! Hope it will do (I suppose there will be still some approximations, unfortunately...)
And, finally, my apologies for grammar and spelling mistakes... English is not my native language and writing a BR is a hard work !
Tyranids « Hive-Fleet Grendel » (Dark green shell, black flesh, and red talons, colour scheme)
Tyrant with 2x
TL Devourers with brainleech worms, Hive Commander
20 Termagants
Tervigon with Catalyst, Adrenal glands and Toxin sacs
28 Hormagaunts with Toxin sacs
2x5 Genestealers
Trygon Prime
Mawloc
Tyrannofex with Rupture canon
Imperial Guard « 64th Saumurian » (Here is the blog of my friend about his IG regiment - in french -) CCOM in Chimera (3 melta / Multi-laser and HFlamers)
Veterans Squad A in Chimera (3 melta / Multi-laser and
HF)
Veterans Squad B in Chimera (3 flamers / 2
HF)
Veterans Squad C in Chimera (3 flamers / 2
HF)
Leman Russ Annihilator (+
LC)
Lemand Russ Punisher (+ 3 HBolter)
Bane Wolf
Squadron of 3 sentinels with
HF Valkyrie
Deployment : I won the deployment roll and decided to occupy the north part of the table.
Tyrant and Tyrannofex went to the east, the Tyrant was hidding in the big ruins while his massive anti-tank friend keeped himself some
LOS on (-future) imperial deployment zone. Tervigon and Termagants hold the center, grumbling mostly in a crater. Trygon went to the west, ready to rush onto poor imperial guards (or so I hoped). I used the Tyrant special rule Hive Commander to keep Hormagaunts in outflank reserve.
My mate deployed his force mainly in the center of the table, behind the biggest ruins of the field. His 4 chimeras side-to-side, flanked on the west by the Banewolf and the Valkirie, and on the east by the two Leman Russ. The Annihilator one was the most distant on my left. Sentinels went in front of the chimeras.
Then, I deployed my genestealers in infiltration. I managed to hide behind two well-placed pieces of terrain, a bunker on the west and a another ruins on the east, to deploy just over 12
ps from imperial lines. (
Imho, that was a big error from my mate, to not assure
LOS to counter my genestealers...)
Turn 1 Tyranids I was sure that missiles from the Valkyrie and
LC from the Leman Russ will be my main problem in these first turns, so I decided to clear the question. The tyrannofex move a little to get a
LOS on the flying thing, while my genestealers rush towards their targets : the Annihilator and the Bane Wolf. Tervigon and his little pets moved to the east to mostly dissapeared behind a ruin, in case where the Punisher will decide to spank them (hard).
I had a nice start with my tyrannofex, hitting 2 times on the Valkyrie with the Rupture cannon. Two penetrating hit and... 5 and 6 on the damage table. Woo ! Valkyrie disintigrated in the air.
The Trygon opened fire on sentinels squadron with good success also. Two exploded and the last, stunned.
In assault phase, I rolled average to run, and genestealers went in assault range of the annihilator and the banewold. At the end of my turn, Banewolf was immobilized and Annihilator had exploded, killing one genestealer.
Turn 1 Imperial Guard At this point, my mate was really going to murder me
IRL to avenge his precious tank and airship.
Fortunately, he finally prefered to beat me on the field (*sigh*)
He moved Chimera C to the west with the Leman Russ Punisher to slaughter my genestealers.
His other chimeras moved a little to fire on what they can see.
All my genestealers perished in his shooting phase, but he doesn't manage to wound the Tyrannofex or the Trygon Prime.
Annihilation Points : Tyranids 2 / Imperial Guard 2 Turn 2 Tyranids Mawloc came in play early, thanks to Hive Commander. He
DS right on the Punisher but did not penetrate the armor.
Hormagaunts came also, and I rolled a 4 on my outflank dice, so they appeared on the west side, and moved towards the Banewolf, hidden by a large wood.
All my forces rushed onto imperial lines. Tyrannofex didn't manage to penetrate the AV12 of Chimera A (Assault 2 / S10,
wth!) and my only assault was on the immobilized Banewolf with the Trygon Prime. Seven penetrating hits later, the imperial tank was no more than dust with some corrosive acids into it.
Turn 2 IG The Punisher and Chimeras A and C rotated on themselves to fire with all their weapons on the Mawloc. After 5 minutes counting dices and calculate wounds and save, it appeared that they only removed three wounds to the subterrean creature !
On the other side of the big ruins, slighty same situation took place with CCOM and Veteran B chimeras firing onto the Trygon with the help of the last sentinel. Here again, 3 wounds.
Thus, my mate decided to assault the
MC with his sentinel (I still don't understand why it seemed a good idea to him
atm... ) and got quickly destroyed.
AP : 4/2 Turn 3 Tyranids Once again the tyranid swarms rushed towards the Saumurian line.
My good Tyrannofex fired again on Chimera A and wrecked it, this time. The Trygon failed with his 12 shooting attacks on the Chimera B but destroyed it, in the assault phase. Veterans Squad B went to ground because of a bad pinning test.
Finally, the Mawloc only managed to stun the Punisher (still a better result that if I only managed to immobilize it, in my opinion !)
Turn 3 IG Chimera C left west flank to redeploy urgently to the east, where Hormagaunts, leaded by Trygon Prime were about to slaugther everything.
The CCOM chimera finally decided to give order to the men of 64th Saumurian... That was a little late if you ask me, but apparently my mate forget the fact that Command squads exist to... well... command.
With rerolls and melta, Squad A killed the Mawloc and CCOM squad shot down the Trygon Prime.
AP : 6/4 Turn 4 Tyranids With no synapse creature near them (Tervigon was 18", or so, away), Hormagaunts rushed into the so-called squad B veterans (the ones who were taking some sleep in the mud).
Tyrant and Tyrannofex were also about to reach the first imperial defenders (or the last, you may think). The Hive commander killed 4 veterans from squad A with his two brainleech
TL devourers. Poor men failed there moral test, watching their mates properly eaten by horrible larvae. They fled but didn't leave the field.
Tyrannofex wrecked easily the Punisher with the rupture canon.
Hormagaunts slaugthered Veterans Squad B and consolidated around near the incoming Chimera C.
Turn 4 IG Chimera C tank-shocked gaunts who dodged and surrounded it, thanks to their large number (and some space between the two last tanks and the edge of the table, which cannot be seen on vassal).
Squad A regrouped and moved 3" only to understand that they will be to far from Tyrant and Tyrannofex to shoot on one of them with their meltaguns.
My mate finally managed to use his Heavy flamers onto a large swarm.
From the CCOM and squad B chimeras, their embarked troops and veterans squad A, that was 3
HF, 3 Flamers, 6 meltaguns and some lasguns. They killed 17 hormagaunts and 2 termagants.
AP : 8/4 Turn 5 Tyranids The last defensive square of the guards seemed pretty hopeless.
Grendel Tyranids prepared themselves for the kill.
Tyrant stunned the CCOM Chimera, while the Tyrannofex stunned the other one.
Tervigon assaulted the CCOM Chimera and wrecked it. Captain LeMans and his men were forced to do an emergency evacuation, on the side of the vehicle, to dodge the Hormagaunts lurking around. But the little horrors soon brought their attention to the squad A last survivors, and rushed on them. LeMans heard dreadful screams and gurgles and knew that the veterans were dead.
Turn 5 IG With one Chimera stunned and his command squad inactive due to their emergency escape, my mate disembarked his last squad to fire on the hormagaunts. Veteran squad C lost a man because of the dangerous proximity of their opponents during their move, and then, opened fire. They killed , in rapid fire, 9 tyranids. Sadly, with 2 gaunts still alive, this turned out insufficient to score an extra point.
We rolled a dice and to my mate great relief, the game ended here.
AP results : 10 – 4.
Tyranids are victorious !
« Fall back ! Fall back ! » Captain LeMans shooted, while killing an horrible hormagaunt with his power sword. But he was not even sure anyone was still alive to hear him.
Blood covered his face and eyes, and the thick full-of-spore air was hurting his lungs. He knew that it was around 8 am, but all he could see was under a dark and terrible blanket of unnatural clouds.
A huge shadow appeared just behind him and he turned around as quickly as possible. Not enough to dodge a powerful blow that sent him crashing into the wreckage of his own chimera, nearby. His ribs broke and he spat blood. He lived just enough to see the evil eyes, shining with intelligence, of the Hive Tyrant, and to hear in his comlink the deseperate calls of the last saumurians, trying to escape from the main base into space.
Then, darkness.
