Search the Community

Alright, tested out my happy little witches yesterday. The Markovian 49th 'Mad Dogs' were sent in to root out the remnants of a Tyranid hive fleet. A junior officer was given the unenviable task of herding his throngs of mutants and psykers into battle. In order to supplement the scouring, the renegades had been loaned a few daemonic engines of destruction by their Death Guard masters. I took a battalion: 1 renegade officer, my warlord, Major Jystinian Kraeth, with plasma pistol and brutal close combat weapon and covenant of Nurgle 4x10 mutants with autoguns (all the mutant bosses had brutal close combat weapons) 2 foetid blight drones chaos decimator with butcher cannon and claw I also took a supreme command detachment with 3 malefic lords and an enforcer with plasma pistol and brutal close combat weapon. My buddy fielded Tyranids. He took a giant pile of hormagaunts in one squad, a giant pile of termagants, also as a solitary squad, along with a smattering of short-range warriors, a warrior prime, and Big Momma the Tervigon (his warlord). So, before the battle I rolled up my mutations- and got triple ones and a 3. I used a command point to try and salvage the situaion (not sure if you can do this but my opponent allowed it) and rolled another 1. Long story short 15 of my mutants apparently had smothered themselves in their sleep the night before the battle. Lesson learned- don't tempt fate. The mission ended up being 'drawn and quartered' so both of us had a pair of far-flung objectives to hold on our own table halves. This wasn't a big deal for me since I had a couple of half-dead mutie squads that wouldn't be good for much besides squatting behind a tower or hill and playing patty-cake with their tendrils. We also drew our ruse cards that gave us special abilities army-wide(?!). I drew a very handy one that made my entire army auto-pass any and all moral checks (which made my enforcer sad). We set up, my ragged throng mostly in front of my characters, the drones on my right staring down Big Momma and her brood. The decimator was in the middle, since they are crazy fast. Since the butcher cannon is heavy, I ended up moving the decimator basically every other turn to keep up. Within my deployment zone I can only hold one objective but planned on moving to seize the other by the end of turn 1. The nids set up, similarly holding one objective and keen on gaining one more. He gets first turn and as he moves up the field with his horde he reveals his trap card- apparently he can essentially deepstrike a squad that could otherwise not. So his hormagaunts vanish and then reappear 9.1" away from my mutant gunline. Teleporting Tyranids, just what the galaxy needed. He gets off the long-range charge with the help of a command point and the swarm barrels into my hapless mutants. I actually manage to gun down a couple in overwatch and then the pain starts. The aliens multicharge and hit like a train, managing to assault all but one mutant squad cringing in the back near my lone held objective. Lots of mutants die. Lots of them. Two squads are wiped completely (with a fair amount of overkill wounds) and all but 3 of the doughty mutants with extra attacks explode. On my turn the the beleaguered mutants scramble to safety and the malelific lords start smiting, with one of them also unleashing a -3 Creeping Terror. The tervigon is too far away to deny so it gets messy for the nids fast. The decimator waded in amid a hail of fire from the blight drones and since the hormagaunts outside of synapse they get vaporized between the fire and morale. The warriors, blight drones and decimator exchange shots as I work my way closer to the bulk of the Tyranid army. His long-range firepower was somewhat limited, but a lot of my army's damage was tied up in smites and plague spitters, so I had to get in close too. The objectives are situated in such a way that the 'nids are separated trying to hold both. A group of six warriors and a prime are on one, and the tervigon and the termagants hold the other with a good 20" to 24" inches in between. One of the drones got banged up thanks to massed fleshborers, but in order to shoot the drones they abandoned one of the objectives (which proved catastrophic). I got greedy and had the drones return some speculative shots at the termagants, but Big Momma just replaced the losses automatically next turn. I quickly decided to concentrate my firepower on the warriors since they stayed dead when I shot them. By the the end of turn 4 I had reduced the warrior brood to steaming jello thanks to the malific lords and the blight drones. Up until this point, I had one malific lord hidden on the forward objective, and three mutants holding the other in my deployment zone. The malific lord managed to stay out of sight thanks to some tricky positioning of the objective which was a spire like structure. On the final turn, the injured prime executed a very tricky assault that nearly killed Major Kraeth. My opponent was trying to get 'Secure the Warlord,' but the traitor officer survived, fell back, and the decimator contemptuously shredded the wounded monster. Amid lots of dead gaunts and mutants, we tallied up our points and discovered that Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker and First Blood weren't standard as in previous iterations of the game. Only the progressive objectives mattered; accordingly, scoring worked like this: Turn 1 Tyranids 2, Nurgle Heretics 1 (after the hormagaunt charge I didn't manage to get anyone onto my other distant objective). Turn 2 Tyranids 4, Nurgle Heretics 2 (this turn I just plain forgot to move someone close enough to the forlorn 2nd objective, RIP) Turn 3 Tyranids 5, Nurgle Heretics 4 (gaunts left their objective to bring all their guns to bear) Turn 4 Tyranids 6, Nurgle Heretics 6 (gaunts back on the objective but the warriors are dead) Turn 5 Tyranids 7, Nurgle Heretics 8 I had squeaked out a win for the forces of Chaos! There were lots of tactical mistakes on both sides, I think. Failing to score on my 2nd objective twice nearly cost me the game (d'oh!). Mutants work way better in big blobs than smaller squads, and I really ate crow with all those pre-game 1's getting rolled. That being said, my many small squads and characters let me hold objectives, where as the huge but limited 'nid broods were unable to spread out enough to seize or contest much. The malefic lords were good- 3d3 mortal wounds doesn't count for too much against massed Tyranids, but it really helped bring down the warriors and crippled the prime easily. I also used Creeping Terror on the hormagaunts, which contributed to their destruction. Shadow In the Warp was annoying so I generally avoided getting my blasphemous sorcerers anywhere near the Tervigon and her spawn. 7/7 would recommend to any servant of Chaos, even you blood-addled Khornate folks! My officer and enforcer didn't do too much, but both got in a few wounds with their plasma pistols and they delightfully inexpensive. I think I saved 2 wounds the whole game with the Covenant of Nurgle. I was unimpressed with the Chaos decimator. I have used him in a couple of battles now and he always seems to do very little; maybe I just need more guns. A storm laser or two may fit the bill. The blight drones are great. They put out good damage, are reasonably hard to put down, and are very useful for influencing how your enemy moves and fights.