My friend Leo just got a new Nid army build up so we had a game to break them.
The mission was Capture and Control with Dawn of War deployment.
The world is a blasted imperial mining world caught up in the wake of a hive fleet tendril and is being systematically purged of life. Emerging from a webway gate was a small Eldar task-force on a mission of vital importance...
The Eldar objective was a choke-point which they were required to hold against the Tyranid advance. The Tyranids were occupying an abandoned but functional Imperial recon post which the Farseer required as part of a more complex and larger plan... Can the Eldar hold off the swarm long enough to reach the recon post? Or will the expedition prove a futile waste of precious eldar life to the great devourer?
Eldar taskforce
HQ Prince Anaris (Yriel equivalent)
HQ Farseer with stones of warding, spirit stones, fortune and mind war powers
Troops 1 10 Guardians with an Eldar Missile Launcher
Troops 2 10 Guardians with an Eldar Missile Launcher
Troops 3 10 Storm Guardians with 2 fusion funs and a warlock with destructor
Wave serpent with twin-linked shuriken cannons and shurken cannon upgrade
Troops 4 10 Dire Avengers with an exarch, power weapon + shiimmershield and defend exarch power
Wave serpent with twin-linked shuriken cannons and shuriken cannon upgrade
Heavy support 1 Fire prism
Heavy support 2 Fire prism
Tyranid swarm (this is off the top of my head...)
HQ The Parasite of Mortrex
HQ Tyranid Prime with bonesword, lashwhip and toxin sacs
Elites 2 Hive guard
Elites Deathleaper
Troops 8 Genestealers with a Broodlord and toxin sacs
Troops 10 Hormagaunts
Troops 10 gargoyles
Troops 3 Tyrannid warriors with lashwhips, boneswords a barbed strangler and toxin sacs
Heavy support Carnifex
Mycetic spore
Eldar Deployment:
Guardian squad 1 occupied the ruins near their objective along with the farseer. Guardian squad 2 occupied the high ground on the rocky outcrop ready to use their missile launcher to good effect.
Tyranid deployment:
Tyranid warriors occupy the recon post screened by a lrge rocky outcrop. The gargoyles and the Parasite deploy hidden by the rocks.
Tyranids fail to steal the initiative and so the game begins on Eldar turn.
Eldar turn 1:
2 Fire prisms swoop onto the battlefield to the right of Guardian squad 2 to maximise their fields of fire. As turn 1 was under night fighting rules the fire prisms and the guardians were unable to see their targets.
The farseer casts fortune on his squad of guardians.
Nid turn 1:
2 Hive guard a Tyranid prime and the hormagaunts swarm onto the field. The Hive guard run behind the rocky outcrop, the prime runs to the warrior brood and the gaunts leap over the ruins surrounding the recon post past the warriors.
The parasite and his gargoyle meat shields fly out of cover towards the eldar guardian squad on the rocks, intent on withstanding the firepower to get into the safety of close combat.
The warrior with the barbed strangler moves out of cover and takes aim at the farseer. His strangler scores a direct hit and only killed a single warrior thanks to the fortune of the farseer. The guardians easily pass their pinning test and the game moves to turn 2.
Eldar turn 2:
rolling for reserves, both the storm guardians and the dire avengers with the Prince arrive and form a grav tank line.
Two fire prisms fire seperately on dispersed mode to slaughter several of the gargoyles. The eldar missile launcher destroys the remainder of the brood with hot plasma leaving the parasite facing the combined firepower of the two wave serpents.
Despite scoring several hits and causing 6 wounds, the parasite saves them all! This leaves him dangerously within range of getting to the guardians and reenacting the scene in Alien where John Hurt has the kind of indigestion that not even Gaviscon can solve... :/
The farseer moves outside the ruins to try and get closer to the Parasite for a mind-war and to get out of los of the warrior with the barbed strangler. Sadly the farseer was 1 inch out of mindwar range (curses!).
Nid turn 2:
Rolling for reserves the Broodlord and his genestealers flank onto the board right behind the farseer and his guardian retinue. Deathleaper also appears behind Fire prism 1 in an attempt to destroy the tank via its fleshooks.
The Parasite of Mortrex swoops 14 inch to place himself within charge range, but he falls short of flying onto the rocks where the guardians reside. The prime joins the warrior brood to enhance their shooting and the hive guard move closer to the grav tank while staying behind cover.
The hormagaunts surge forwards, getting closer to the Eldar objective but also within range of the Eldar guns.
Nid shooting falls flat this turn, as the hive guard are out of range to do anything. Deathleaper fails to damage a fire prism with his shooting attacks. The one bonus is that the barbed strangler warrior, boosted by the prime hits the farseer and guardians and manages to wound the farseer (even with fortune!).
If shooting wasn't the Nids strong point, then combat surely was as the Broodlord led his genestealers to charge both a wave serpent and the farseer and his guardian retinue. The Broodlord himself scored several hits on the grav tank but just fell short of glancing each time. His followers did much better against the guardians, rending 3 to death and killing a further 4 with no losses in return.
The guardians and the farseer bottle it and run, outpacing the genestealers who consolidate closer to the wave serpent.
The parasite failed to charge the guardians due to the difficult terrain by rolling a 1, leaving him stood in gun range from a full guardian squad, 2 wave serpents and 2 fire prisms, d'oh!.
Eldar turn 3:
Since the farseer's guardians were below half strength they could not rally and continued to run along with the farseer.
The wave serpent carrying the storm guardians moved close to Deathleaper and they disembarked. The dire avengers and the prince disembarked from their wave serpent to take out the Genestealers sitting on the Eldar objective.
The fire prisms split up and moved to cover either side of the rocky outcrop to get better fields of fire.
Eldar shooting was effective, with the fire prisms combined might blasting apart the hormagaunt brood. The wave serpent and the Storm guardians manage to kill Deathleaper in a hail of shurkens. 7 genestealers died to the shurkens of the avengers and the wave serpent brought the Broodlord down to a single wound.
Finally, the guardians blew the Parasite to pieces with a well aimed krak missile.
Nid turn 3:
The Nids looked depleted, with the threats to the Eldar objective all but destroyed. But they still had a trick up their sleeve, from the skies a mycetic spore dropped carrying its deadly cargo, the carnifex.
The spore fires cluster spines on the Dire Avengers but misses and scatters onto the newly disgorged Carnifex... maybe the spore was a bit twitchy after landing! But it didn't bother the Fex and it's tank-like armour plates.
The hive guard shoot the second fire prism, scoring 2 hits but neither causing any damage. The warrior with the barbed strangler fires on the farseer, scoring a direct hit and killing off the remaining guardians surrounding him.
The carnifex shoots brainleech devourers at the avengers, killing 4 but they stand their ground.
The lone Broodlord charges the Storm guardians, cleaving 3 to the ground but falling to the witchblade of the warlock.
Eldar turn 4:
The Storm guardians embark into their wave serpent and it turbo boosts 24 inches towards the hive guard. The Prince leaves the Dire avengers behind to face the carnifex alone, and the avengers embark onto their wave serpent, moving towards the warrior brood.
The fire prisms move towards the Nid objective and shoot the hive guard brood, killing one and shooting the carnifex, causing a wound.
Guardian squad 2 shoot up the spore, knocking off a wound. The avenger wave serpent gets lucky and knocks the carnifex down to 2 wounds. The prince throws his sword at the carnifex but fails to wound (I shouldn't have said "bet I roll a 1"...).
The only combat of this turn was the prince charging the carnifex.
He causes 4 hits and, needing only 2+ to wound... I was terrified to see the first die as a 1, the second die as a 1.... but thankfully the last two hit home, slaying the fex!
Nid turn 4:
The hive guard moves towards the home objective. The warrior shoots the prince with the bardbed strangler and causes a wound. The spore shoots the prince and causes another wound (damned 1s!). The hive guard tries to shoot down the wave serpent but the 4+ cover save from turbo boosting saves the day.
Eldar turn 5:
Moving into the end-game, the eldar need to contest or capture the Nid objective to secure victory. So the wave serpents boost to contest the objective and the fire prisms move to get firing arcs on the remaining Nids.
The farseer finally rallies and moves towards the Nid objective. Guardian squad 2 moves towards the home objective and the prince joins them in his wounded state.
The guardian missile launcher blasts the spore contesting the home objective apart, assuring an Eldar victory.
The fire prisms shoot the warriors and cause a wound on the tyranid prime.
Nid turn 5:
The hive guard moves onto the tyranid objective and the warriors converge on the nearest wave serpent.
The barbed strangler destroys the twin-linked shurken cannons of the Storm guardian wave serpent and the hive guard destroys the single cannon, leaving the serpent weaponless.
The warriors charge the serpent but fail to cause any damage.
Leo rolls the die to see if the game continues and rolls a 4, bring on turn 6!
Eldar turn 6:
In a last ditch effort to secure the Nid objective, everything that can moves towards it. The storm guardians and avengers disembark ready to rain shurkens on the warrior brood.
The farseer moves into mind-war range and shreds the mind of the remaining hive guard.
A fire prism, the storm guardians and the avengers all pour fire onto the warriors, killing all but 1 warrior and leaving the prime on 1 wound. the second fire prism shot scattered onto the Avengers wave serpent, stunning them and preventing them from shooting.
With no other option for clearing the warriors, the storm guardians bravely charge into combat, managing to take down the warrior but failing to kill the prime thanks to it's decent armour save.
In return the warriors killed 3 guardians causing them to fail and run. Sadly the guardians didn't run far enough and were massacred by the Tyranid prime to a man.
Nid turn 6:
With the game lost, it was up to the Prime to get revenge by slaughtering the Dire avengers in combat. Due to some good rolls thats exactly what he did, killing 4 and suffering no wounds in return. The avengers flee meaning no eldar troops were capable of claiming the Nid objective.
With that the game ended as an Eldar victory 1 objective to 0.
Before the very end, there was one final thing to resolve. The prince had to make an invunerable save or suffer a wound, which just happened to be his last remaining wound thanks to some poor saving throws. I picked my die up and threw it on the table where it duly landed on a 3 to add a bitter note to the eldar victory.. The prince is dead, long live the Prince!
