Long time no post! I've been organising a crusade campaign at my local club, and members have gotten really into it, with plenty of games occurring each week, and using the Leviathan campaign rules and supplement. 

 

This month, after an imperial win in month 1, the nids are on the back foot as the imperials take the fight to the swarm. The Chaos raiders are doing some looting and pillaging, and the imperial archive worlds are under assault from both material and immaterial enemies. 

 

This was a 1400pt game featuring:

Chaos Daemons

Slappy the Bloodthirster - relic axe, thunderous blows, 5+ FNP against ranged attacks from monsters/vehicles.  (in deepstrike)

Exalted flamer

Daemon prince - slaanesh

5 hounds - leader has +1A and AP on melee weapons. 

5 hounds

10 bloodletters (in deepstrike)

3 skullcrushers

3 flamers

Wardog with thermal thing and gatling. 

 

Hive Fleet Jabberwocky

The consuming wraith - hive tyrant with invasion FNP relic,

Neurotyrant with power of the hive mind

3 tyrant guard with ranged resistance (with neuro)

Maleceptor with +1A and precision on psychic weapon

Haruspex with +1WS and D on maw

20 horms with +1 advance and charge

10 gargs with ranged resistance (in deep strike)

3 venoms with ranged resistance

3 zoans with designated target (reroll 1's to hit and wound against chisen target slappy)

5 barbgaunts with deep wounds

10 gants with devourers and battle scarred resistance

1 pyrovore

1 ripper

3VRL's with scouts 9".

 

You can fit a lot of nids into a list! 

 

Nids were defending and deployed first, and won the first turn. Everything was deployed as in the below image, just their movement further back into the DZ. Normally I pick sustained hits, however it's only against infantry and my opponent started with...4 infantry models on the table, so I went with lethal hits on monsters and vehicles to help deal with the armiger, bloodthirster, prince and skullcannon.

 

Nids T1

The VRL's deployed forwards to try and steal the top right objective and kill some flesh hounds before they could burn my hormagaunts. They charge in and kill 2. Maleceptor moved up and shot the bloodcrushers but did nothing (my opponent rolls amazingly on 4++ saves...) the hormies held back out of flamer range until I could deal with things. 

Daemons T1

I fnp the gaunts and the haruspex with the tyrants ability. Armiger moves round the building, gatlings 5 gaunts, thermal lances the maleceptor but it's saved by the 4++. Skullcannon shoots the haruspex but does nothing. Armiger charges the leapers and kills one. flesh hounds kill another. Crushers charge the maleceptor and do 4 damage.

 

3 objectives each so 10-10

 

 

 

Photo end of Daemon T1 movement. 

 

NT2

Daemons central objective 3 disappears, so advatage to me.

My gaunts spread out to zone out my DZ from the thirster, the gargs come down in my DZ for this also while everything else moves up. Maleceptor thinks better of trying to fight and falls back, while the tyrant moves up to charge them. I have a hail mary plan for the armiger, and regenerate 5 gaunts with the strat, gain 4" of distance, then advance them 15" up the board at the armiger. barbs, neuro and zoans  bring down one bloodcrusher between them, then the tyrant charges in and kills the remaining 2 with twin linked. The haruspex charges the darmon prince and kills him with maw alone, a tasty morsel for the hive. My gaunts charge the knight, and 2 die to overwatch, but 18 make it in. I pop the criticals on 5+ strat and pray that with ~54 attacks I can get the average 18 critical hits. My dice spike insanely and I get 28 wounds through on the armiger and fails 13, killing it. It crashes down, taking the last leaper, 1 gaunt and a flesh hound with it. Big upset for the hive!

 

Hormagaunt assault!

 

DT2

Now really on the back foot, losing 2 key pieces, both flesh hound units round on the guants  and burn them down, the flamers and skullcannon start to plink wounds off the haruspex, setting it on fire for -2 move and charge. Slappy comes in, and the letters stay in reserve. Slappy drops on the right flank 9.1" from the venoms ad barbs, but fails his charge. 

3 objectives to 2 for the nids, so we go 30-20 up. 

 

NT3

Nid central objective is removed, evening things up. Haruspex moves then fails to charge the flamers, getting flamed again. Tyrant hides in buildng away from the thirster, leaving the venoms and barbs to their fate. Barbs shoot into the bloodthirster, doing nothing but crucially slowing him down. Zoans and Maleceptor blast him taking him down to 6 wounds. gargs plink away at him. 

 

DT3

Flamers sticky objective the left hand one and run away from the battleshocked haruspex. They plink some more wounds. The Bloodthirster moved his 8" due to being slowed by the barbgaunts and got 4" away from the venoms and 1" way from the barbs, then declared a multicharge on both, needing a 4 to get in. He then proceeded to roll precisely a 4...reduced to a 2 from the barbgaunts...cp rerolled into a double 1...and failed charge.

2-2 on objectives for 40-30 to the nids. 

 

NT4 - Mopping up.

Tyrant moves and charges the cannon, killing it. haruspex charges and wipes the bloodletters. This was the end of Slappy the Bloodthirster who was brought down to 1w by the zoans and then punked by a lethal hit from a lowly lowly barbgaunt.

At this point we called it, as my opponent couldn't do much. End result is 60-35 to the nids. 

 

I managed to tyrannoform each turn to gain loads of XP and 3 biomass, and my gants and gargs were in 2 table quarters for infestation, so 2 more biomass. I really need more ENDLESS units to be able to score higher here and generate more biomass. Anothr unit of gaunts will be great, possibly in strat res, or possibly gargs. 

 

I canned the carnifexes from the list to make room for the eventual norn emissary, even though they're not that great. I might run it as the assimilator to get that sweet S12 harpoon action. The carnifexes over 3 games have just been poor, and vastly overshadowed by the haruspex. 4A at WS4+ is not worth 125pts, they could do with going down to 80, and the spex going up to 135 or so. That 125pts of carnifex could in no way do what 130pts of hormagaunt did in that game, and they have ni way of regenerating. I do think that hormies are one of the standout units in the book, and have not lost their 9th ed damage buffs, namely -1AP and 3A, so use them while they're great! 

 

In the post game, stuff got a bunch of XP, and I marked my zoans for greatness making them hit 16xp and an advance. I picked weapon upgrade, netting +1A and -1AP on the neurothropes psychic weapon (yay!) and put them onto the monster hunter path for 1RP. The leapers got deep scars, so effectively everything has lethal hits against them, and for winning I get a crusade relic for one of my characters - I need to decide which, Im thinking the +1 save for the hive tyrant, or maybe one of the nid ones.