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My son asked me to play a game with him using his First Strike set. We have the full rule book, some codexes, and lots of other models, but he wanted to use just the contents of his First Strike set, plus one additional model for each side. He played the Primaris Space Marine army and added a Space Marine dreadnought to his forces. I played the Death Guard army and added a tyranid maleceptor to my forces.
After doing the roll-off and deployment, my son got to go first. He moved his reavers up behind a building for cover, moved his dreadnought forward on the battlefield and moved his intercessors ahead. His attacks were furious, but only resulted in the slaying of one Death Guard marine.
On my turn, after all of my units had moved, the maleceptor used his psychic ability to Smite an enemy intercessor for 2 damage. Then, after all of my units succesfully charged, one Space Marine was killed.
Play went back and forth in typical fashion until all of my Poxwalkers and Death Guard Marines had been slain. But no worries as my maleceptor still had all 12 wounds left. My son's team had lost the intercessor unit, had 4 wounds left for his dreadnought, and still had the full reaver squad left with no damage.
On his turn, he scored a close combat hit during the Fight phase that did 9 damage to my maleceptor. Ouch! Being wounded, the maleceptor fought back, but with less strength and accuracy, and missed.
My only chance was to finish off the dreadnought and then take out the reavers. I needed to inflict 4 wounds to destroy the dreadnought. During my psychic phase, I was able to inflict one mortal wound to the dreadnought. 3 to go. During the fight phase, my maleceptor scored 3 hits, followed by 3 successful wound rolls, which was more difficult considering the lower maleceptor stats due to his wounds. The dreadnought failed his saves for all 3 wounds.
Thinking I now only had to survive against the 3 reavers, my son gets a big smile on his face. He reminds me that his dreadnought has one more important ability. It explodes when it dies, and on a roll of 6, it causes D3 damage. Ok, I thought, he probably won't roll a 6, and even if he does, he'll probably do 1 or 2 damage, still leaving my maleceptor alive.
He rolls his explosion roll and gets a 6. He rolls his D3 damage roll and gets a 5, which causes 3 damage, ending the game in a glorious explosion, taking out my maleceptor, and leaving his reavers alive to celebrate their victory.
Tension was high, the battle felt very balanced, and the ending was so epic that even though I lost, I wouldn't have wanted it to end any other way.
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