One loss under my belt, and my next fight is against the Tyranids, fielded by our guest general, Bubonicus.
Apparently he's never played 40k before, but his army has already annihilated half the players in this tournament, so either this is one powerful army list, or he's a very fast learner.
The Tumultuous Creed: Thousand Sons
- Exalted Sorcerer, Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades
Warlord: High Magister
Relic: Helm of the Third Eye
Prescience, Death Hex, Smite - Daemon Prince with wings, 2 x Malefic Talons
Gaze of Fate, Warptime, Smite - 6 x Rubric Marines, Force Stave, Warpflame Pistol, Inferno Boltguns
Weaver of Fates - 10 x Tzaangor, Tzaangor Blades, Brayhorn
- 10 x Chaos Cultists, Shotgun, Autoguns, Heavy Stubber
- 5 x Scarab Occult Terminators Force Stave, Inferno Combi-Bolters, Power Swords, Soulreaper Cannon, Hellfyre Missile Rack
Glamour of Tzeentch - Defiler, Battle Cannon, Twin Lascannon, Defiler Scourge, Defiler Claws, Combi-bolter
Hive Fleet Ringer: Tyranids
- Hive Tyrant with wings, Heavy venom cannon, Monstrous rending claws, Adrenal glands, Toxin sacs.
Smite, Catalyst
Warlord: Adaptive Biology
Relic: Miasma Cannon - Neurothrope, teeth and claws
Smite, Onslaught - 12 x Genestealers, Rending Claws
- 12 x Genestealers, Rending Claws 3 x Acid maws
- 4 x Tyranid Warriors, adrenal glands, 3 x bone swords & deathspitters, 1 x Venom Cannon & Rending Claws
- 3 x Venomthropes
- Tyrannofex, Acid Spray, Stinger Salvo, adrenal glands and toxin sacs
Game 2: Deadlock
We're playing Deadlock, which means six objectives to start with, counting down per turn, so this could be a potential cricket score of victory points.
Bubonicus picks the deployment zones this time, and unsurprisingly for a fast-moving combat army, picks Search and Destroy - opposing quarters, with the narrowest gap between us.
Bubonicus picks the deployment zones this time, and unsurprisingly for a fast-moving combat army, picks Search and Destroy - opposing quarters, with the narrowest gap between us.
He deploys his Hive Tyrant into deep strike, and the rest of the army at the edge of deployment: genestealers on either flank; Warriors and Venomthropes down the centre, Neurothrope and Tyrannofex at the rear.
All of them pawing the snowy ground with the claws, ready to unleash the bowel-loosening terror that is Hive Fleet Kraken's movement phase.
For my part, I aim to get the most use from the corner of my deployment and stuff all my big hitters at the back.
The Rubrics go slightly forward to camp on an objective, and the Cultists assume their usual meat screen in front of the Defiler.
The Terminators and Tzaangor go into deep strike - I'm sticking with this tactic every game to see how it plays out. And also, in this case, I'm really scared to put anything on the board.
Hive Fleet Kraken went first, as you would expect, and their first objective was to get out of their deployment zone. No easy task for an army with such a large footprint, but the green gribblies had no trouble and raced out of their own quarter, coming at me with an alacrity I found disturbing.
Bubonicus then decided to double-down and drop his Flying Hive Tyrant right next me my Deamon Prince and charge in - mercifully, he failed the charge and with minimal shooting and no other charges to make, it was my turn to answer.
I responded with a corker of a first round: about half my objectives were achievable (the other half was to take objectives in his deployment zone, so not great) and I cast everything I wanted in the Psychic phase (I find that the outcome of the Psychic phase tends to indicate how my turn will go).
Everything else then opened up on the Hive Tyrant, knocking a number of wounds off him (the Cultist champion even wounded him with a shotgun - the weapon of choice for killing xenos - before Bubonicus spent a command point to avoid the ignominy).
Then both Defiler and Deamon Prince charged into the Hive Tyrant. The Daemon Prince did so well that the Defiler barely had to raise a tentacle to clobber the enemy warlord, securing me First Blood and Slay the Warlord in a single stroke.
I still had both my units in deep strike (I was trying to exercise patience, and there was nowhere safe to drop them in), and had taken the lead. But in the following turn, I was going to have to weather an avalanche of claws.
Sure enough, the Tyranids responded by charging my Defiler with the left flank Genestealers and the Rubric Marines with the Tyrannofex and right flank Genestealers. The Rubrics put up a fight (mostly because the alley was too narrow to squeeze in all the attacks), but in the end, all but the Aspiring Sorcerer were wiped out. The Defiler also took something of a hiding, though he squashed about half the Genestealers in reply.
Crucially, Bubonicus was looking for objective points, and had to pull back his Neurothrope to take an objective in the back field - his army had advanced so fast, that was all he had in reserve.
In my turn, I decided to take advantage of this - my objectives were to clear the centre and kill a psyker - so I dropped in the Terminators to hose down the Venomthropes in the middle and Tzaangor to ambush the Neurothrope at the back.
I held the Defiler in combat, since he was pretty much surrounded anyway, disengaged with the Aspiring Sorcerer, and pulled back with the Cultists, and Exalted Sorcerer. Having more mobility, the Daemon Prince was able to fly out of my deployment area (aka the kill zone) and threaten the centre.
The Tzaangor made their charge into the Neurothrope - they're particularly suited to killing characters (which makes them lovely webway ambushers), but with 21 attacks anyway, not even the Neurothrope's 3++ save was going to last and it got murdered by the beastmen.
The Terminators enjoyed the advantage of bring dropped in a position where they weren't about to be immediately counter-charged (maybe I'm learning) and hosed down the Venomthropes. Only one remained for the Daemon Prince to charge in and finish off.
Elsewhere, the push between the Defilers and Genestealers continued - with their numbers denuded, the Genestealers weren't so effective in combat anymore, and I was optimistic about seeing this one out.
That changed with Bubonicus' third turn, and another round of counter-charges: right flank Genestealers into the Aspiring Sorcerer, Cultists, and Exalted Sorcerer. Tyranid Warriors against the Deamon Prince, and a clash of the titans as the Tyrannofex went straight into the Defiler.
On the right flank, I had a decent round of decent Overwatch (thank you, handflamer), but even against five remaining Genestealers, none of my units were able to last in combat - with the exception of the brave shotgun Cultist, who wisely fled.
In the centre, the Daemon Prince weathered the Tyranid Warrior attacks, then proceeded to fell a couple of them in return, looking comfortable for the next bout.
In the big match, the Tyrannofex took the Defiler down to his last few wounds, but the Daemon Engine then shows what is it really capable of against high-toughness, multi-wound monsters, and punches the Tyrannofex down to half wounds. The remaining Genestealer attacks finally brought the Defiler down, but he'd put in a good shift.
By my third turn, we'd essentially swapped deployment zones. The Daemon Prince, Tzaangor and Terminators were all in the centre, facing two depleted units of Genestealers and a wounded Tyrannofex. There were also the half-strength Tyranid Warriors, but they were all gunned down in the subsequent shooting phase.
I'm way ahead on victory points now (those objectives that were in his backline are now paying off), and with no way for the Tyranids to get back in the game, Bubonicus concedes the match.
Final thoughts
I win! This was especially surprising, considering the Tyranids were the unbeatable foe of this WoffBoot. The speed of Hive Fleet Kraken is really unsettling, but being able to deepstrike two of my best units helped to offset that, giving myself mobility and the Tyranids fewer targets.
My heavy hitters performed well - both the Defiler and Daemon Prince doing good service in tying up or isolating and destroying the enemy units. And the Psychic Phase was kind to me, which meant I could bring all the toys of the Thousand Sons into play.
But I was a lot happier with the way the army worked this time, and a good thing - my next battle is Daemons of Nurgle, led by a Great Unclean One!
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