It's late in the year. But what better stocking filler than one last chance to try and beat a Daemon Primarch?
Yes, it's time for a final Skype rumble with Kraken (bold),
and I, Stylus, as plain as can be
as we pitch our respective forces against each other, freshly armed with the new rules update from Chapter Approved 2018!
Magnus with your Mega-Smite
Nidzilla is a thing, a list mostly consisting of monsters. This is what I'd be thinking of running if I was up for buying the extra models, and I'm particularly interested to see how Carnifexes play. This is a far-from-tourney-optimised load, I'm sure, but it should be fun to bowl towards the smitey companionship of the Thousand Sons. Maybe I'll even remember which one is which.
Otherwise it's a feeble Battalion, padded with cheap Ripper Swarms and given a tiny extra chance of survival with the Jormungandr trait (they always count as being in cover unless they advance or charge).
The big big savings are then all spent on big big models - a Rupture 'Fex, because I've fought Magnus before, and an Exocrine, his marginally pricier cousin. Yes! Tyrannofexes have dropped about thirty points, they're cheap as chips now. Just as good for your health, too. If that much shooting can't bring something down, I don't know what can.
That, with command, packs out a Spearhead Detachment, and they'll be Hive Fleet Kronos. A bit dull, I know, but great for the shooty bugs and even better for the annoying psychic shenanigans. One Tyrant, but the walking shooting kind, and a Malanthrope with him. And six Venomthropes as a screen, which is silly money for a relatively ineffectual unit, but you need the extras or their cloud won't protect the big monsters.
And after all that, still enough points for a Hive Crone! Because if we're playing a beta-list of Tyranids, you may as well bring all the uglies. If it does well, I promise to actually buy some of these creatures. There is a vestige of honour in my heart somewhere, next to all the ichor.
Battalion Detachment - Hive Fleet Jormungandr
Spearhead Detachment - Hive Fleet Kronos
Points: 1749 | Battalion + Spearhead: 9 CPs
Chapter Approved gave a healthy drop in points to all the unpopular units of Thousand Sons too. So to celebrate, I'm going to try out a list without my beloved Tzaangors.
Rurbics and Scarab Occult will be my backbone, with two units of Cultists (the only ones to go up in points) for cheap battalion fillers and backline guards.
I'm also trying out Spawn in decent numbers, since they always get left at the fag-end of army points and, without Tzaangors, I need some melee options. To boost them, and add some heft, a couple of Mutalith Vortex Beasts.
A couple of Disc Sorcerers rounds off of the list, along with the Big Boy himself. My psychic powers are a mix of mortal wounds and boosts to Magnus.
I'm thinking I need to curb my natural aggression a bit, and play defensive - let the Tyranids come onto me and pile in with a load of Smites, while Magnus does his thing to the bug castle.
Right, so now we've picked our armies, what are we going to do with them?
Chapter Approved has some new suggestions, and we'd decided to try out Tactical Cascade. A Maelstrom battle with a couple of twists, in essence, with the first one being all-new deployment rules. After that, we can actually choose our first two objectives in turn one, and we get to draw two next turn for each one we complete. The proviso here is that you lose VPs for every three you haven't finished by game's end, so pick carefully!
The game suggests the new and tourney-friendly idea of being allowed to remove up to six cards from your deck, but we eschew this. We've always played that you can redraw anything that was impossible from the start of the game anyway, which has roughly the same effect. Although see below!
With objectives in place, we rolled off to see who would pick deployment zones (me, Spearhead please) and then a table edge (I went on the left). Stylus then had to deploy his entire army, but as a reward, would get to pick who got the first turn.
In wisdom, or great folly, I decide to go second. As I mentioned, I want to draw the Tyranids into my powered-up Magnus, and with a short-edge deployment, I reckon I can deploy outside of most of their guns' range.
So Magnus goes on the backline, flanked by the Disc Sorcerers and with the Cultists screening the corners. The Scarab Occult and Terminator Sorcerer go into deepstrike. The Rubrics hunker down in the ruins of Objective 2, since it will take a job to winkle them out of there.
I then forget my entire plan about holding back and place my two Mutaliths and Spawn right at the tip of the deployment chevron. With no guns, I guess I just wanted to get these guys upfield quickly.
For my part, I knew that I wanted to hit that sweet spot of far enough away from Magnus that he couldn't reach me easily, whilst being near enough to shoot him. Not the easiest, knowing he was right down the far end of the table. My firepower is considerable, but it doesn't have the reach of some other armies.
Still, more than this Thousand Sons lot! So I go with a Carnifex speartip filled with tasty Venomthropes, the Tyrant and the Neurothrope. The Bug Guns take up the north side, backed by Malanthrope, Prime and Warriors, the Hive Crone sits in the temple to the south.
And then I'm handed the first turn!
Now, I've thought about this carefully. One defend Objective (I pick 5 as it's nice and near my front line) and then something to reward a careful advance. Swarm seems as good as any, it'll give me one for having more than the foe, and that's easy when they haven't had a turn yet.
So the guns sit still while the centre advances gently, using the large central mesa as cover. The psychic phase is quiet as I'm mostly out of range, but I Catalyze the lead Carnifex (Curly, with the crab claws) and then bide my time.
Shooting! Let's see what these new toys can do.
Quite a lot, it seems. Plastering bioplasma, rupture pods and spine banks into the lead Mutalith (which is sadly pretty much the only thing I can reach) strips the great lug down. It takes most of my firepower to do it, which isn't exactly encouraging, but it was a pretty duff round of rolling. I get the impression Stylus is reasonably impressed, anyway, and it gives me First Strike, so that's all to the good!
My Mutalith!
Objectives Scored: Swarm (1), First Strike (1)
It turns out the Defend objective was not a wise choice, but we'll come back to that.
I barely have time to mourn the loss of my poor Mutalith when my line surges forward. So much for holding back - that show of long-range firepower has me rattled.
The two Cultist units spread out, just to ensure no Ripper Swarm surprises in my backline, and the Rubrics stay put. Everyone else races upfield led, of course, by Magnus.
Out of Shadow of the Warp aura, my psychic phase is predictably robust. I cast a total of six psychic powers (so that scores me 3 VP) and the key ones are Internal Gateway (severely wounds the lead Carnifex and splashes over to kill two Venomthropes), Daemonic Strength (boosts up Magnus) and Warptime (gets Magnus where I need him to be - in east charge range).
The only powers I fail to cast is Weaver of Fates (+1 invulnerable save) and Glamour of Tzeentch (-1 to hit) and I blame myself for not using the Cabalistic Focus stratagem (that's why I have two Sorcerers accompany Magnus!). It was just me being stingy with Command Points, and as a result, it's left my big hitter more vulnerable that I'd like.
We move to shooting, and the surviving Mutalith takes two mortal wounds off the Crone, while the sporadic firepower of the Rubrics just about manages to take off the last wound from the Carnifex, which is excellent, as Magnus now has a clear run and juicier targets.
He does just that, reaching the Venomthropes and getting within 1", but leaving enough space to pile in closer and tag the Malanthrope, who he also charged. Splitting his augmented attacks with great economy, he manages to wipe out both units and declines to pile into anything else - just stands in the centre of the Tyranid lines, waving them all on.
So I also get First Strike, as well as a whopping amount of points for Power of the Cabal. However, I didn't read my rules carefully enough - although I am looking good to get Defend Objective 2 in Kraken's turn, you only get extra objective cards if you achieve them in the last battle round, which has just ended. Oops.
Kraken, on the other hand, has just got Defend Objective 2, so draws level on points, with handful of extra cards to look forward to.
Objectives Scored: First Strike (1), Power of the Cabal (3)
Objectives Scored: Defend Objective 5 (2)
Because of my slip with the objectives last turn, I only get two new ones: Big Game Hunter (not much else to kill around here) and No Prisoners (no problem)
Magnus is right where he wants to be, and the rest of the army races to catch up with him. The Mutalith and Spawn race along the southern flank, the Rubrics and Sorcerers scoot along the north. The newly-created Spawn-Prime runs around to pester the Exocrine.
The only ones standing still are the Cultists, who are playing a Tremors-style waiting game with the Ripper Swarms.
I also drop the Terminators and Terminator Sorcerer in behind the Exocrine and Tyrannofex. I don't expect much damage, but they should be able to tie up the big guns and not die in the process.
The subsequent Psychic phase shows that Thousand Sons sorcery can swing both ways, especially when Hive Fleet Kronos are throwing out their shenanigans.
My first priority, even before casting Gaze of Fate, is to bump up Magnus by a single wound, to get him in his top bracket and full bonus to casting. However, the Scarab Occult Terminator who tries Temporal Manipulation rolls a double 1 (hmm... maybe I should have tried Gaze of Fate first), which inflicts two mortal wounds on the squad. I then take another two wounds from the Soul Hunger warlord trait - so that's two Terminators dead before we've started!
The Soul Hunger comes into play against my two Disc Sorcerers, who each fail a casting and take a couple of wounds apiece. But after that, I manage to get off a few powers - the key ones being another Demonic Strength on Magnus, aided by Glamour of Tzeentch. My Terminator Sorcerer has better fortune than his counterparts, and manages to Death Hex away the Hive Tyrant's invulnerable save, so he's in real trouble now.
Interestingly, the power I really wanted was Weaver of Fates on Magnus, but I knew Kraken would use The Deepest Shadow stratagem to stop me. This mean he couldn't use it any other power I tried to manifest, so it was something of a standoff: I could cast any other power unimpeded, as long as I didn't try for the one I wanted most.
Elsewhere, the Terminators whiffed at the Exocrine, who ignored them and stamped on the poor Spawn-Prime. Magnus did his thing with the last two opponents: swatting aside the last Carnifex and then murdering the depowered Hive Tyrant for a warlord kill and big game hunter.
So I get both my objectives (sadly the Carnifex's last wound against the Spawn prevented me from getting D3 No Prisoners), and Kraken claimed Blood and Guts for killing what had, until recently, been one of his own side.
Objectives Scored: Big Game Hunter (1), No Prisoners (1), Slay the Warlord (1)
Objectives Scored: Blood and Guts (1)
Well, I'm just flopping about uselessly at this point. Dismayed and disrupted, my limited attempts at damage control go hopelessly awry.
Two new objectives - Big Game Hunter (I wonder who that should be) and Advance, which is just salt in the wounds now.
The Ripper Swarms turn up, ready to harrass the only targets they can possibly cope with. That's the cultists at the back, although long bomb charges aren't going to do me any favours. So the Crone flies off to help thin the cult ranks.
My powers get shut down by Magnus, my Tyrannofex kills nothing at all with six hits and no damage on Magnus, everything else is either fleeing or failing charges. The Crone butchers a bunch of cultists with drool and spines, but that's really all the good news.
Larry is dragged down by the spawn, who then pursue into the Neurothrope. I only just fled him away from them, too!
The Tyrannofex charges the terminators, which is stupid panicked thinking for you. Nobody gets very far in that fight, unsurprisingly.
And then I'm done! Well done. Very well done. Crisp, I'd say.
Objectives Secured: none
I move out to secure these objectives: the Mutalith parks himself in the temple on Objective 1 (I have every confidence he'll be there next turn); the Rubrics double back to Objective 2, ensuring they are within rapid-fire and flamer range of the Hive Crone.
Magnus, finally free of combat, flits in between the Tryannofex and Exocrine, so he can Smite one and charge the other. The Disc Sorcerer fly up to support him, and the Spawn carry on chasing the Neurothrope.
In the backline, the Cultists break out the cans of bug spray and move towards the Ripper Swarms.
I romp the Psychic phase: Magnus gets healed up and fully buffed, the Neurothrope loses its invulnerable save, and the Exocrine is Smited to pieces.
I don't know what is more galling for Hive Fleet Afanc: me rolling a full 3VPs for Master the Warp, or the fact that, with nothing left alive in their deployment zone, they technically now score Advance.
Either way, the game's over, and the remains of the Hive Fleet scurry away to lick their wounds.
Objectives Secured: Master the Warp (3), Secure Objective 2 (1)
Objectives Secured: Advance (1)
… and a partridge in a pear tree!
Looking back, I think both of our plans were the wrong way around. I should certainly not have tried to defend against firepower of that magnitude, and Kraken should certainly not have shortened the distance between his army and Magnus.
I think I'm getting the swing of how to use the big fella now - notably to make sure he's always loaded with buffs and killing something high-value. But this feels like a good moment to put him on the bench for a spell and let some other guys have the fun.
One unit that did catch my eye was the Spawn. They're cheaper now, and used in large units, backed by a Mutalith, could make for some very interesting melee options. I wish they had an invulnerable save (but there is a spell for that...)
All in all, great fun. I had as much fortune as I could possible hope for, and I'm sure it will all turn around and hit me in the face for my next game, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
Ouch.
You know, at the start of the game, I suspected the result would swing on whether or not I could deal with Magnus or not. That was a good call.
Probably the only one I made in the match, I fear - charging him with everything after that shooting disaster definitely compounded my woes. Maybe even allowing him to get Warptime off in the first turn, too - an extra round of having to chop through Venomthropes (or even ablative Rippers) might have kept me alive a little longer.
But it was not to be! Lessons learned, though. One of them, paradoxically, is that those shooty bugs are great. If it hadn't been for some extraordinarily poor rolls, even for me, I reckon I could have had Magnus on turn two, then slowly and happily shot my way through everything else in fairly short order. And Carnifexes, well, I love them. Cheap and mean, if sadly only on the table. Pretty damn pricey irl, but they're definitely maybes for future buying.
At one point, we'd wondered about this match being Magnus vs a Heirophant. Watch this space, folks, I'm going to have those big red horns on my wall one day.
Yes, it's time for a final Skype rumble with Kraken (bold),
and I, Stylus, as plain as can be
as we pitch our respective forces against each other, freshly armed with the new rules update from Chapter Approved 2018!
Magnus with your Mega-Smite
Won't you pull my sleigh tonight?
Tyranids - Monster Mash
Well, Chapter Approved has done my brood some favours. Points are down on monsters almost across the board. At least the ones whose kits aren't selling so well, anyway. My wallet is once more empty (I splurged on the jungle scenery), so I've picked a rather putative list.Nidzilla is a thing, a list mostly consisting of monsters. This is what I'd be thinking of running if I was up for buying the extra models, and I'm particularly interested to see how Carnifexes play. This is a far-from-tourney-optimised load, I'm sure, but it should be fun to bowl towards the smitey companionship of the Thousand Sons. Maybe I'll even remember which one is which.
Otherwise it's a feeble Battalion, padded with cheap Ripper Swarms and given a tiny extra chance of survival with the Jormungandr trait (they always count as being in cover unless they advance or charge).
The big big savings are then all spent on big big models - a Rupture 'Fex, because I've fought Magnus before, and an Exocrine, his marginally pricier cousin. Yes! Tyrannofexes have dropped about thirty points, they're cheap as chips now. Just as good for your health, too. If that much shooting can't bring something down, I don't know what can.
That, with command, packs out a Spearhead Detachment, and they'll be Hive Fleet Kronos. A bit dull, I know, but great for the shooty bugs and even better for the annoying psychic shenanigans. One Tyrant, but the walking shooting kind, and a Malanthrope with him. And six Venomthropes as a screen, which is silly money for a relatively ineffectual unit, but you need the extras or their cloud won't protect the big monsters.
And after all that, still enough points for a Hive Crone! Because if we're playing a beta-list of Tyranids, you may as well bring all the uglies. If it does well, I promise to actually buy some of these creatures. There is a vestige of honour in my heart somewhere, next to all the ichor.
Battalion Detachment - Hive Fleet Jormungandr
- HQ - Neurothrope, Smite and Psychic Scream
- HQ - Tyranid Prime, Glands and Hooks, Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword
- Troops - 5 x Ripper Swarms
- Troops - 5 x Ripper Swarms
- Troops - 4 x Tyranid Warriors (two with Devourer and Scything Talons, one with Bone Swords and Deathspitter, one with Venom Cannon and Rending Claws)
Spearhead Detachment - Hive Fleet Kronos
- HQ - Hive Tyrant, Warlord (Soul Hunger), Balethorn Cannon, two Devourers with Brainleech Worms, Catalyst and Onslaught powers
- HQ - Malanthrope
- Heavy - Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon
- Heavy - Exocrine
- Heavy - 3 x Carnifex, featuring Curly (Crushing claws and twin Devourers, acid maw, spore cysts and thresher scythe), Larry (twin Deathspitters, Heavy Venom Cannon, enhanced senses, chitin thorns, spine banks) and Mow (twin Monstrous Scything Talons, adrenal glands, spore cysts, bone mace)
- Elite - 6 x Venomthropes
- Fast Attack - Hive Crone
Points: 1749 | Battalion + Spearhead: 9 CPs
Thousand Sons: Where We're Going We Don't Need ... Goats
Chapter Approved gave a healthy drop in points to all the unpopular units of Thousand Sons too. So to celebrate, I'm going to try out a list without my beloved Tzaangors.
I'm also trying out Spawn in decent numbers, since they always get left at the fag-end of army points and, without Tzaangors, I need some melee options. To boost them, and add some heft, a couple of Mutalith Vortex Beasts.
A couple of Disc Sorcerers rounds off of the list, along with the Big Boy himself. My psychic powers are a mix of mortal wounds and boosts to Magnus.
I'm thinking I need to curb my natural aggression a bit, and play defensive - let the Tyranids come onto me and pile in with a load of Smites, while Magnus does his thing to the bug castle.
- Magnus the Red (LoW)
The Blade of Magnus
Warlord Trait: Lord of Forbidden Lore
Psychic powers: Gaze of Fate, Infernal Gateway, Smite, Warptime, Weaver of Fates. - Exalted Sorcerer on Disc (HQ)
Two Power Swords, Plasma Pistol
Relic: Seer's Bane
Psychic powers: Diabolic Strength, Glamour of Tzeentch - Exalted Sorcerer on Disc (HQ)
Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol
Relic: Dark Matter Crystal
Psychic powers: Temporal Manipulation, Warptime - 10 x Rubric Marines (Troops)
Force stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol, 2 x Warpflamer, Soulreaper Cannon
Psychic powers: Tzeentch's Firestorm - 10 x Cultists (Troops)
Autoguns - 10 x Cultists (Troops)
Autopistols, Brutal Assault Weapons - 5 x Scarab Occult Terminators (Elite)
Force stave, 4 x Inferno Combi-bolters, 4 x Power Swords, Soulreaper Cannon, Hellfyre Missile Rack
Psychic powers: Temporal Manipulation
- 4 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)
- Mutalith Vortex Beast (Heavy)
- Mutalith Vortex Beast (Heavy)
- + 25 reinforcement points
Mission and Deployment
Right, so now we've picked our armies, what are we going to do with them?
Chapter Approved has some new suggestions, and we'd decided to try out Tactical Cascade. A Maelstrom battle with a couple of twists, in essence, with the first one being all-new deployment rules. After that, we can actually choose our first two objectives in turn one, and we get to draw two next turn for each one we complete. The proviso here is that you lose VPs for every three you haven't finished by game's end, so pick carefully!
The game suggests the new and tourney-friendly idea of being allowed to remove up to six cards from your deck, but we eschew this. We've always played that you can redraw anything that was impossible from the start of the game anyway, which has roughly the same effect. Although see below!
With objectives in place, we rolled off to see who would pick deployment zones (me, Spearhead please) and then a table edge (I went on the left). Stylus then had to deploy his entire army, but as a reward, would get to pick who got the first turn.
In wisdom, or great folly, I decide to go second. As I mentioned, I want to draw the Tyranids into my powered-up Magnus, and with a short-edge deployment, I reckon I can deploy outside of most of their guns' range.
So Magnus goes on the backline, flanked by the Disc Sorcerers and with the Cultists screening the corners. The Scarab Occult and Terminator Sorcerer go into deepstrike. The Rubrics hunker down in the ruins of Objective 2, since it will take a job to winkle them out of there.
I then forget my entire plan about holding back and place my two Mutaliths and Spawn right at the tip of the deployment chevron. With no guns, I guess I just wanted to get these guys upfield quickly.
For my part, I knew that I wanted to hit that sweet spot of far enough away from Magnus that he couldn't reach me easily, whilst being near enough to shoot him. Not the easiest, knowing he was right down the far end of the table. My firepower is considerable, but it doesn't have the reach of some other armies.
Still, more than this Thousand Sons lot! So I go with a Carnifex speartip filled with tasty Venomthropes, the Tyrant and the Neurothrope. The Bug Guns take up the north side, backed by Malanthrope, Prime and Warriors, the Hive Crone sits in the temple to the south.
And then I'm handed the first turn!
Tyranids - Turn 1
Now, I've thought about this carefully. One defend Objective (I pick 5 as it's nice and near my front line) and then something to reward a careful advance. Swarm seems as good as any, it'll give me one for having more than the foe, and that's easy when they haven't had a turn yet.
So the guns sit still while the centre advances gently, using the large central mesa as cover. The psychic phase is quiet as I'm mostly out of range, but I Catalyze the lead Carnifex (Curly, with the crab claws) and then bide my time.
Shooting! Let's see what these new toys can do.
Quite a lot, it seems. Plastering bioplasma, rupture pods and spine banks into the lead Mutalith (which is sadly pretty much the only thing I can reach) strips the great lug down. It takes most of my firepower to do it, which isn't exactly encouraging, but it was a pretty duff round of rolling. I get the impression Stylus is reasonably impressed, anyway, and it gives me First Strike, so that's all to the good!
My Mutalith!
Objectives Scored: Swarm (1), First Strike (1)
Thousand Sons - Turn 1
For my starting objectives, I pick Defend Objective 2 (the one my Rubrics are camped on) and Power of the Cabal (1VP for every two psychic powers I manifest - if that's not a gimmie for Thousand Sons, I don't know what is).It turns out the Defend objective was not a wise choice, but we'll come back to that.
I barely have time to mourn the loss of my poor Mutalith when my line surges forward. So much for holding back - that show of long-range firepower has me rattled.
The two Cultist units spread out, just to ensure no Ripper Swarm surprises in my backline, and the Rubrics stay put. Everyone else races upfield led, of course, by Magnus.
Out of Shadow of the Warp aura, my psychic phase is predictably robust. I cast a total of six psychic powers (so that scores me 3 VP) and the key ones are Internal Gateway (severely wounds the lead Carnifex and splashes over to kill two Venomthropes), Daemonic Strength (boosts up Magnus) and Warptime (gets Magnus where I need him to be - in east charge range).
The only powers I fail to cast is Weaver of Fates (+1 invulnerable save) and Glamour of Tzeentch (-1 to hit) and I blame myself for not using the Cabalistic Focus stratagem (that's why I have two Sorcerers accompany Magnus!). It was just me being stingy with Command Points, and as a result, it's left my big hitter more vulnerable that I'd like.
We move to shooting, and the surviving Mutalith takes two mortal wounds off the Crone, while the sporadic firepower of the Rubrics just about manages to take off the last wound from the Carnifex, which is excellent, as Magnus now has a clear run and juicier targets.
He does just that, reaching the Venomthropes and getting within 1", but leaving enough space to pile in closer and tag the Malanthrope, who he also charged. Splitting his augmented attacks with great economy, he manages to wipe out both units and declines to pile into anything else - just stands in the centre of the Tyranid lines, waving them all on.
So I also get First Strike, as well as a whopping amount of points for Power of the Cabal. However, I didn't read my rules carefully enough - although I am looking good to get Defend Objective 2 in Kraken's turn, you only get extra objective cards if you achieve them in the last battle round, which has just ended. Oops.
Kraken, on the other hand, has just got Defend Objective 2, so draws level on points, with handful of extra cards to look forward to.
Objectives Scored: First Strike (1), Power of the Cabal (3)
Objectives Scored: Defend Objective 5 (2)
Tyranids - Turn 2
Scoring two objectives in the last battle round means I can draw four. Excellent!
They're all shit. Curses.
Dominate and Blood and Guts are fair enough, I can cast powers and kill in close combat. But come on, Domination and Terrify? I can't get all six objectives in a turn, the Rubrics are camping on one and they take a fair bit of shifting. And I could probably force a morale check on the cultists, but there are more pressing targets to hand.
To whit, one Daemon Primarch, all alone in the middle of my gunline without his precious buffs. I swoop the Crone across to flank him and wheel everything else around, ready to shoot and then trample the remains.
As a preliminary, I throw some powers about, but Catalyst and Psychic scream both fail me. Smites get me three wounds, but I've not hit the target mark of three powers for the Dominate objective, which is annoying. Still - shooting time is party time! And what a party it is!
For Magnus.
For my bugs, it's a big old Christmas Office Party, with embarrassing dancing, too much booze and crappy jumpers. Magnus waltzes cheerfully away in the middle of an absolute ton of whiffle power, as both Exocrine and Tyrannofex achieve no wounds at all. It's actually the small arms fire from Crone and Warriors that peel the most off him. Even the Tyrant's use of Pathogenic Slime doesn't get through that damned invulnerable save. By the time the dust settles, in fairness, he is down nine wounds, but it's cost me four command points (rerolls and even a second round of shooting from the Warriors).
Can I take the rest in combat? Well, it's not impossible. Mow charges in, along with everything else I can throw at him - Warriors, Prime, Crone and Tyrant all back him. The last reluctantly, but at this range, it's use it or lose it, Magnus will take out creatures fast and then follow up to engage survivors.
Mow goes first, his flashing pincers are my hardest hitter. They whiff, of course, sliding uselessly off Krampus the Red, and in my haste to paste him, I've forgotten something...
I can interrupt! And not just here on the battle report, but during the Combat Phase after the first charger has attacked. I have no hesitation about whipping out two Command Points and letting Magnus have his say.
He's still powered up with Daemonic Strength, and so I can split his attacks, as before, between a character and a unit: in this case the Tyranid Prime and the Tyranids. They are wiped out, and to add insult to injury, the Prime gets mutated by the Blade of Magnus into a Spawn!
 |
| "How d'ya like that for adaptive biology?" |
...oops. Well, that stymies me rather. The Tyrant does his best, but he's a shooter not a fighter. I even splurge feebly on a second round of combat from Mow, remembering his mace tail this time. I think it's another wound in total? Very little of use, all in all, and certainly extremely bad news for me.
Big Red ain't dead, and his mates are catching up. I ditch the Terrify objective and pray for luck on the next draw.
Objectives Scored: Defend Objective 2 (2)
Objectives Scored: Nope. Not Today.
Thousand Sons - Turn 2
Wow! That was an improbably never-to-be-repeated round of good fortune for me. Magnus could have easily died under that weight of firepower (although I was starting to fancy my chances in melee). The initiative is definitely with me.Because of my slip with the objectives last turn, I only get two new ones: Big Game Hunter (not much else to kill around here) and No Prisoners (no problem)
Magnus is right where he wants to be, and the rest of the army races to catch up with him. The Mutalith and Spawn race along the southern flank, the Rubrics and Sorcerers scoot along the north. The newly-created Spawn-Prime runs around to pester the Exocrine.
The only ones standing still are the Cultists, who are playing a Tremors-style waiting game with the Ripper Swarms.
I also drop the Terminators and Terminator Sorcerer in behind the Exocrine and Tyrannofex. I don't expect much damage, but they should be able to tie up the big guns and not die in the process.
The subsequent Psychic phase shows that Thousand Sons sorcery can swing both ways, especially when Hive Fleet Kronos are throwing out their shenanigans.
My first priority, even before casting Gaze of Fate, is to bump up Magnus by a single wound, to get him in his top bracket and full bonus to casting. However, the Scarab Occult Terminator who tries Temporal Manipulation rolls a double 1 (hmm... maybe I should have tried Gaze of Fate first), which inflicts two mortal wounds on the squad. I then take another two wounds from the Soul Hunger warlord trait - so that's two Terminators dead before we've started!
The Soul Hunger comes into play against my two Disc Sorcerers, who each fail a casting and take a couple of wounds apiece. But after that, I manage to get off a few powers - the key ones being another Demonic Strength on Magnus, aided by Glamour of Tzeentch. My Terminator Sorcerer has better fortune than his counterparts, and manages to Death Hex away the Hive Tyrant's invulnerable save, so he's in real trouble now.
Interestingly, the power I really wanted was Weaver of Fates on Magnus, but I knew Kraken would use The Deepest Shadow stratagem to stop me. This mean he couldn't use it any other power I tried to manifest, so it was something of a standoff: I could cast any other power unimpeded, as long as I didn't try for the one I wanted most.
Not much happens in Shooting - having half my Terminator Squad blown up didn't help much as I plink off a single wound on the Tyrannofex.
And then it was off to the charges. The Spawn-Prime went into the Exocrine to stop Overwatch, then the Terminators made a long charge into its rear.
The other Spawn unit also made a very long charge into the shooting Carnifex (I was getting some hot dice at this point), so I decided to reward them with a stratagem. Fated Mutation allowed me to reroll their random attacks and pick my mutation.
I went with the mutation that gave me two more attacks, and when my reroll turned up 6, each of my four Spawn were getting eight attacks apiece (I now realise I only rolled 24 dice - maths is hard). Weight of numbers brought the Carnifex down to a single wound - I think Catalyst was his saving grace here.
So I get both my objectives (sadly the Carnifex's last wound against the Spawn prevented me from getting D3 No Prisoners), and Kraken claimed Blood and Guts for killing what had, until recently, been one of his own side.
Objectives Scored: Big Game Hunter (1), No Prisoners (1), Slay the Warlord (1)
Objectives Scored: Blood and Guts (1)
Tyranids - Turn 3
Well, I'm just flopping about uselessly at this point. Dismayed and disrupted, my limited attempts at damage control go hopelessly awry.
Two new objectives - Big Game Hunter (I wonder who that should be) and Advance, which is just salt in the wounds now.
The Ripper Swarms turn up, ready to harrass the only targets they can possibly cope with. That's the cultists at the back, although long bomb charges aren't going to do me any favours. So the Crone flies off to help thin the cult ranks.
My powers get shut down by Magnus, my Tyrannofex kills nothing at all with six hits and no damage on Magnus, everything else is either fleeing or failing charges. The Crone butchers a bunch of cultists with drool and spines, but that's really all the good news.
Larry is dragged down by the spawn, who then pursue into the Neurothrope. I only just fled him away from them, too!
The Tyrannofex charges the terminators, which is stupid panicked thinking for you. Nobody gets very far in that fight, unsurprisingly.
And then I'm done! Well done. Very well done. Crisp, I'd say.
Objectives Secured: none
Thousand Sons - Turn 3
It's looking good for me, and with two objectives scored last turn, I get four new ones: Secure Objective 2 (the one my Rubrics have just walked off); Defend Objective 1 (in the ruined temple); Master the Warp (psychic power - easy) and Psychic Supremacy (a really duff one that depends on the enemy casting a power for me to deny)
I move out to secure these objectives: the Mutalith parks himself in the temple on Objective 1 (I have every confidence he'll be there next turn); the Rubrics double back to Objective 2, ensuring they are within rapid-fire and flamer range of the Hive Crone.
Magnus, finally free of combat, flits in between the Tryannofex and Exocrine, so he can Smite one and charge the other. The Disc Sorcerer fly up to support him, and the Spawn carry on chasing the Neurothrope.
In the backline, the Cultists break out the cans of bug spray and move towards the Ripper Swarms.
I romp the Psychic phase: Magnus gets healed up and fully buffed, the Neurothrope loses its invulnerable save, and the Exocrine is Smited to pieces.
In the Shooting Phase, the Crone is taken down to its last wound, and the Cultists hose down the Rippers before charging in and killing two bases. Out of synapse range, the rest of them scuttle away and my unit of cannon fodder claim a rare victory!
Back in the remains of the Tyranid lines, things go as predicted: Magnus kills the Tyrannofex before anyone else can pitch in. The Exalted Sorcerer with the Seer's Bane relic find the perfect target in an exposed Neurothrope and chops him to pieces.
I don't know what is more galling for Hive Fleet Afanc: me rolling a full 3VPs for Master the Warp, or the fact that, with nothing left alive in their deployment zone, they technically now score Advance.
Either way, the game's over, and the remains of the Hive Fleet scurry away to lick their wounds.
Objectives Secured: Master the Warp (3), Secure Objective 2 (1)
Objectives Secured: Advance (1)
Result: Tripart Victory to the Thousand Sons - VP lead, Effective Tabling and Foe Surrender!
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| Magnus the Red's Roughnecks! Oo-Rah! |
Reboxing Day
Gosh, that was a thick slice of luck Santa gave me as an early present. When Magnus gets going, he can be very hard to live with. By himself, he pretty much accounted for: four tyranid warriors, one tyranid prime, two carnifexes, one malenthrope, one exocrine, six venomthropes, one tyrannofex, one hive tyrant …… and a partridge in a pear tree!
Looking back, I think both of our plans were the wrong way around. I should certainly not have tried to defend against firepower of that magnitude, and Kraken should certainly not have shortened the distance between his army and Magnus.
I think I'm getting the swing of how to use the big fella now - notably to make sure he's always loaded with buffs and killing something high-value. But this feels like a good moment to put him on the bench for a spell and let some other guys have the fun.
One unit that did catch my eye was the Spawn. They're cheaper now, and used in large units, backed by a Mutalith, could make for some very interesting melee options. I wish they had an invulnerable save (but there is a spell for that...)
All in all, great fun. I had as much fortune as I could possible hope for, and I'm sure it will all turn around and hit me in the face for my next game, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
Ouch.
You know, at the start of the game, I suspected the result would swing on whether or not I could deal with Magnus or not. That was a good call.
Probably the only one I made in the match, I fear - charging him with everything after that shooting disaster definitely compounded my woes. Maybe even allowing him to get Warptime off in the first turn, too - an extra round of having to chop through Venomthropes (or even ablative Rippers) might have kept me alive a little longer.
But it was not to be! Lessons learned, though. One of them, paradoxically, is that those shooty bugs are great. If it hadn't been for some extraordinarily poor rolls, even for me, I reckon I could have had Magnus on turn two, then slowly and happily shot my way through everything else in fairly short order. And Carnifexes, well, I love them. Cheap and mean, if sadly only on the table. Pretty damn pricey irl, but they're definitely maybes for future buying.
At one point, we'd wondered about this match being Magnus vs a Heirophant. Watch this space, folks, I'm going to have those big red horns on my wall one day.
Honestly, even with the points drop, I'm not terribly impressed by the Rupture Cannon T-Fex. Now the Acid Spray T-Fex with the new pricing, that's a different story!
ReplyDeleteThe Rupture Cannon can be potentially devastating ... The problem is it's a bit hit-and-miss (no pun).
DeleteI heartily agree. I've taken them three times and never achieved anything of note - too swingy. The acid spray is much more use, a rupture Cannon is a backup take at best. I'm still yet to try the Hive variant, I think that has legs!
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