Kraken vs Kraken: Mantis Warriors vs Tyranids

The Drawbridge System - a colossal Imperial logistics installation, providing food, ammunition and fuel to several key battlefronts. Since the events of the Zamaroon Campaign, this crucial supply nexus has become next in line for Hive Fleet Afanc. As the shadow in the warp falls across the system, the Imperium races to redeploy defence forces from more than a dozen other warzones. 

In the meantime, protection of Drawbridge falls to a tiny force of Mantis Warriors and Hagan Lamprey Scions...

Welcome to another Skype Battle Report! It's me, Kraken, and me, Pootle, playing across Skype. This, as any other forthcoming battle reports that I host, will be folded into a running campaign to determine the fate of the Drawbridge system. Nothing particularly planned, but it's nice to have a tale running across reports I think, so we'll see how it goes. 

Cometh the Hourtis, Cometh the Mantis

New toys, therefore the obligation to use them! 

The Mantis Warriors don't have their second wounds yet, which at least means I can pack a relatively high number of them into this list. Intercessors with the heavy bolt rifles to provide long range fire support, then two small Tactical squads with a variety of handy weapons. Nothing that won't fall over in seconds to any sort of Tyranid assault, but I can hopefully shoot a few down or protect more vital targets for a bit. 

Speaking of which, the all-new Vindicator, ready to either flatten something with a single turn of shooting or (more likely) get wrapped in combat and then beaten up. 

Guarding it is a Land Speeder tooled with missiles, then a large bike squad which is capable of doing extreme damage to small units if left unchecked. 

Then a Hammer Biker Captain, flying on a loaner from the White Scars with the super-jumpy bike relic, plus a trait that gives him +1 to hit or wound Monsters and Vehicles, just in case I find any out there. And a Primaris Librarian with a shooty lightning spell and a good debuff (if I can get close enough to use it and live) in Blasting Gale, which could really slow down those hyperactive hive dwellers. 

And a Rhino, because I might need to get places fast and take them back off this swarm, and plus everyone needs Rhinos. 

Mantis Warriors Battalion, 999 points and 5 CPs

• HQ - Captain on Bike with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, Wrath of the Heavens relic (-1CP), Hunter's Instincts trait
• HQ - Primaris Librarian with Blasting Gale and Lightning Call powers
• Troops - 5 x Intercessor Squad with Stalker Bolt Rifles
• Troops - 5 x Tactical Squad with Missile Launcher, Sarge has bolt pistol and chainsword
• Troops - 5 x Tactical Squad with Meltagun, Sarge has plasma pistol and power fist
• Fast Attack - 5 x Bikers, Sarge has a combi-melta, someone else has a melta gun, they've all got bolt pistols
• Fast Attack - Land Speeder with Typhoon Missile Launcher and Heavy Bolter
• Heavy Support - Vindicator with Storm Bolter
• Dedicated Transport - Rhino with twin Storm Bolters

Tyranids: Hive Fleet Kraken

I’ve been looking forward to playing Kraken’s Nids for a while. I’ve faced them twice some time ago, with the last occasion being a cracking game, going all the way to the final dice roll. Facing the Mantis Warriors, I chose Hive Fleet Kraken so both armies can advance & charge (it feels like the strongest hive fleet anyway). I decided that with 9^th being all about board control, I would lean into smaller Troops units: a couple of Ripper swarms to deep strike onto outfield objectives and a couple of basic Termagant units to sit on nearer ones. 

Distracting attention away from these is a 15-strong unit of Genestealers (I had toyed with the idea of two smaller units, as Kraken has previously concluded is a better idea) and a trio of Tyranid Warriors (one toting a Venom Cannon to take on the inevitable Vindicator and, for 1CP, all sporting the Enhanced Resistance ability to ignore -1 and -2 AP). Heavy support is provided by a Tyrannofex wielding an acid spray and leadership from a Broodlord (to buff the Stealers) and a wingless Hive Tyrant. 

The Hive Tyrant has the basic (but effective-looking) Monstrous Rending Claws, allowing rerolls to wound and a Heavy Venom Cannon (S9 to take on the Vindicator). He’s the Warlord and I’ve taken the Kraken-specific One Step Ahead trait, which means a unit within 6” will fight first. With the change to who fights after non-charging units, this should mean that he will always get two of the first three rounds of fighting, whichever side makes the charge. 

I’m hoping that his 12 wounds mean that he can survive the first round of combat (and attention from the Vindicator) – if that turns out not to be the case then the trait will have been wasted… He has also taken the Resonance Barb relic, which lets him cast a third psychic power and deny a second, plus giving a +1 to psychic tests. Lastly, in addition to the Onslaught psychic power, he has the Kraken-specific Synaptic Lure, which will allow all units to reroll charges against a specific unit. 

• Broodlord (HQ): Catalyst
• Hive Tyrant (HQ): Adrenal glands, Heavy Venom Cannon, Monstrous Rending Claws, Onslaught, Synaptic Lure. Warlord: One Step Ahead. Relic: The Resonance Barb
• 15 Genestealers (Troops): 3x Acid Maws, 15x Scything Talons
• 3 Ripper Swarms (Troops)
• 3 Ripper Swarms (Troops)
• 10 Termagants (Troops): Fleshborers
• 10 Termagants (Troops): Fleshborers
• 3 Tyranid Warriors (Troops): Adaptive Physiology: Enhanced Resistance, Adrenal Glands. 2x Boneswords & Deathspitter; 1x Boneswords & Venom Cannon
• Tyrannofex (Heavy Support): Acid Spray

Points: 999 | Power level: 52 | Battalion - Progeny of the hive: 5 CPs 

Mission and Terrain

We're playing Resupply from the Grand Tournament pack. Five objectives (two in each home zone and three across the middle) with the twist that two of those middle ones will disappear during the game. Which ones go is randomised, but it's worked out before the game so you know what to expect. For us, the one in the middle will vanish at the beginning of turn four, then the one on the right at the start of turn five. 

Our terrain today is a newly installed plasma generation site, vital to the Mantis Warriors as it powers the defence network protecting their main landing site. If the Tyranids take this out, it's going to be a lot harder for them to land materiel as fast as they need. 

It's as balanced as I could make it, with similar amounts of cover in each deployment zone, then a big Obscuring castle to the left of centre, then a line of Obscuring generators on the other side of the central objective. Lots of light cover and ruins all over the place, then a Difficult patch of bog surrounding the left objective. 

Mantis Secondaries:

• Cut Off the Head - like Slay the Warlord, but starts off worth 13 VPs if you get it in the first turn and drops in value as the turns progress
• Thin Their Ranks - because Tyranids
• Secure Landing Sites - the special for this mission. You score extra points for each central objective you hold at the start of your turn, starting at 2 VPs per and increasing slowly through the game, but the number of sites of course decreases!

Afanc Secondaries:

• Secure Land Sites - because I want to be sitting on objectives anyway, this is an obvious secondary.
• Domination - as above, I want to be sitting on objectives anyway so this will increase the VPs for doing so.
• While We Stand We Fight - 5VPs for each of the Hive Tyrant, Broodlord and T-Fex if they survive the battle; this (along with cut off the head) will encourage Kraken to target these units, but might then mean he isn't targeting my objective-scoring Troops.

Deployment

I go fairly castle-y, in adherence to slightly outdated Codex practices for Space Marines. If I go first, I can pour forward and spread out a bit, grabbing objectives and possibly blowing up early targets. If I don't, I can use the Captain's rerolls to nuke anything thinking to take the centre or right. 

One unit of Rippers is burrowing underground, the other unit positions ready to run for the right-hand objective. One unit of 'Gants gets on the starting blocks for the left-hand objective, whilst the other sits on the backfield one. I had thought about keeping my Stealers back a bit to counterpunch, but decide to go all-in and send them up the middle as there's a passable amount of LoS-blocking terrain there. Naturally they are accompanied by the Broodlord. If I don't get first turn though, I could be in trouble.

The T-Fex and Tyrant lurk behind the enormous castle and the Warriors give Synapse cover to the Rippers on the right.

My camera was not behaving. It's a bit blurry, but you can see the similarity to the Chronicler map! 

Tyranids Turn 1

Given my aggressive placement of the Stealers, it's a good job that I get to go first. The Termagants on the left are told to run forwards to the objective, but weren't paying attention so, despite rolling three dice for the advance, don't get there. The Tyrant is furious and wills them to exert themselves so (at the cost of three of their heads popping with the effort) they move and advance again using the Metabolic Override strat. 

Meanwhile the Stealers, Broodlord and Rippers all make it onto their respective objectives and the Warriors move out of cover to draw a bead on one of the Tactical Squads (I'd wanted to get eyes on the Bikes, but it wasn't to be).

The only thing I want (and can) do in the psychic phase is put Catalyst onto the 'Stealers to give them a 5+++. The Broodlord is clearly distracted by the psychic howling of the Tyrant at the Termagants and needs a CP reroll to successfully cast it.

The only shooting is from the Warriors, who unload into the Melta Tactical Squad and...cause no damage whatsoever. Hmmm, now I'm all out in the open...

Objectives scored: Domination (3)

Mantis Warriors Turn 1

Right, they're right where I want them. Apart from the bit where they're holding all the midfield objectives, but we'll let that pass for now. 

The Captain immediately abandons his castle, revving forwards alone towards the Warriors, with the Vindicator rumbling along behind. The Rhino moves to block the Warriors' line of sight to everyone else (although this means I forget that I was going to shoot them while the Intercessors could still pierce their souped-up armour). 

The Land Speeder goes high; everything else goes in the middle, with the Bikers advancing round the drill to take point. They get Skilled Riders played on them too, for a 3++ save. 

The Psychic Phase goes pretty well - I get Blasting Gale off on the Broodlord, as I'd like to stop it running off after the Captain and I'm not likely to clear out the swarm fast enough to hurt it this turn. Then I get low perils trying to perform Lightning Call on the Genestealers, and manage to reroll this into high perils! Great! 

At least I turn three wounds lost into three dead xenos. After that, the shooting starts. 

Almost everything that can shoots the 'stealer pack. Rapid fire bolters, bike meltas (with Born in the Saddle for full shooting effect), Stalker rifles - the works. It leaves them with seven, which is a damn good start. Elsewhere, the Vindicator bursts a Warrior with ease, then the Speeder manages a double two as it tries that tempting first turn Warlord kill. 

Then still more CPs, as I use Rivalries to help the Captain with a nine-inch charge on the Warriors. He just makes it, and cheerfully golfs the remaining bugs to bits with his hammer before eating the very last CPs to Strike for the Heart and consolidate into the back of the Ripper Swarms. These fail to eat him immediately, somehow.

Should the Bikers charge in, finish those 'Stealers? Hmm. Probably, but I bottle it in the end - a mere eleven attacks isn't quite going to cut it, I think, and I don't fancy going up against the Broodlord, who could probably intervene in, until I can trim him down a bit. So that's it for me, not a bad start against the swarm but plenty still incoming and I haven't grabbed any objectives back yet!

Objectives scored: nil

Tyranids Turn 2

I start the turn by scoring the full 15 VPs for all the objectives I'm sitting on, and adding 6 more for the secondary mission.

I've got more Genestealers left that I thought I might, and certainly (due to Catalyst) more than I would have done if Kraken had gone first. I'm really tempted to send the Genestealers to deal with the Captain, but decide to stick with Plan A and get rid of the Bikes - something tells me that the Captain will come to me in good time, and the Broodlord is shackled so can't advance. Despite the Broodlord feeling a bit woozy, he and the Stealers can easily stroll forwards to sit right in front of the Bikes and Tac Squad (I'm feeling confident so plan to charge both of them). Because this takes them off the central objective, the spare Ripper Swarm emerge from the ground and occupy it (they were also blessed by an invisibility mutation as Kraken forgot to place them on the table until my next turn when I asked to move them; this did stop them being targeted by any fire but didn't affect the course of the game).

The T-Fex moves forwards to get a better view to shoot twice next turn - it's got options on the Land Speeder, the Bikes or the Captain. The Tyrant follows it and can shoot at the Speeder or the Captain.

Once again the only psychic power I need to cast is as no units will need help charging this turn, but the Librarian manages to dispel this power, which could be critical. Good news though: the Hive Tyrant Smites three wounds off the Land Speeder, which is probably my priority target given its fire output coupled with being relatively easy to kill.

In the Shooting phase the Termagants on the left-hand objective manage to knock a further wound off the Speeder and the Tyrant finishes it off with his Heavy Venom Cannon.

The Tyrannofex now has a choice of which 3++ he wants to take on: the temporary one on the Bikes or the Captain who may be coming for a visit imminently. Because there are only seven Genestealers left, I decide to help them out and spray acid on the Bikers, but the indecision meant that the Bikes managed to dodge out of the way.

The Broodlord crashes into the Bikes and the Stealers split their attention between the Bikes and Tac Marines. However the Skilled Riders 3++ really pays dividends (or they were distracted by the acid spraying over their heads) and they only kill one Bike and three Tac Marines. The returning punches take a wound off the Broodlord and kill a Stealer. I therefore pay 3CP to have another go, but this round is even worse and I only take a single wound off a Bike and kill one more marine!

At the end of the turn I'm still sitting on four objectives, so score Domination once more.

Objectives scored: 15 on Primaries, 6 on Secure Landing Sites, 3 on Domination

Mantis Warriors Turn 2

The Bikers pull out from that damn Broodlord, ready to shoot with the aid of Feigned Retreat from my lone and swiftly used CP. Rhino and Vindicator rumble forward as the Captain puts his shield over his eyes and drives straight for the Tyrannofex. Fist Sarge, sole survivor of his squad, runs for the Rhino, and who can blame him?

Psychically, the Shadow shuts down my Smite attempt and Lightning Call takes a mere wound from the Broodlord. Then the bugger dodges the melta shots from the bikes, although their bolters take its progeny down to a mere two. These two avoid all further shots, from both tanks and the Intercessors. 

Not that the tanks are just shooting at them. The Vindi lands a splendid triple shot on the Tyrannofex, blasting a ten-wound hole in its armour! Excellent! Impressed by this, the missile Tac squad puts all their guns on the Rippers and totally wipes them. Oops - I was expecting to merely wound them so I could charge in, and I didn't think to move on to the objective first, so that's a bit of a blunder. But who expects Space Marines to be that good at shooting?

Then it's squeaky bum time. The Captain rides for the Tyrannofex (I do try a long bomb with the Vindicator, hoping to soak Overwatch) and straight into a nearly-maximal torrent of acid. Thank the stars, I manage to roll well on the Storm Shield, and only a single hit from the eleven get through. It still strips him to half wounds, but he then clobbers the T-Fex with relative ease, just leaving him staring down the Tyrant at close range. 

With a doomed reluctance, the badly-wounded Librarian charges the Broodlord. He is never heard from again. 

Objectives scored: 5 on Primaries

Tyranids Turn 3

In the Command phase I score another fifteen for primary objectives and another four for controlling two of the three drop sites - this is good because I know I need to build up a big lead as I can see my forces evaporating rather quickly now. 

The Broodlord moves to have yet another go at finishing off the Bikers, and the remaining pair of Stealers chase the Power Fist-armed Tactical Sergeant, who's forgotten the Rhino's access code and is hammering on the door.

The Rippers abandon the central objective (which will disappear next turn, though this does mean I won't score Domination this turn), and move to set up an easy charge on the Vindicator and shut down its big gun for a turn.

The Broodlord manages to cast Catalyst on himself, which may help as there aren't an awful lot of guns left to target him. Having remembered that the Resonance Barb gives a +1 to cast, the Hive Tyrant manages a super-Smite on the Captain and takes 3 wound off him, which is just enough to finish him off. 

Rather than taking on the Vindicator, he aims his Heavy Venom Cannon at the backfield Intercessors, but only kills one of them.

In the fight phase, the Broodlord manages to kill a couple of Bikes, but the two Stealers fail to take down the Tac Sergeant, who turns round and punches one of them to death.

Objectives scored: 15 on Primaries, 4 on Secure Landing Sites

Mantis Warriors Turn 3 

Fist Sarge gets into the Rhino, which speeds off towards the left flank, as do the Bikers (once more playing Feigned Retreat). The Vindicator escapes from the Ripper Swarm as the Missile Tac squad finally seizes the right field objective, and train their guns on the tiny monsters. The Intercessors try to snipe a wound or two off the Tyrant, but he's too well shielded.

Yet again, the Broodlord manages to dodge almost every shot I can fling at it, not that it's many! At least the bike sarge manages to ding it with his bolt pistol. This distracts it just long enough for the Rhino to run it over from behind, taking that last wound with a desperate charge. 

The bikers then charge into the Termagants, having thinned their ranks with a bit of split fire in the way in. But the charge is a whiff, and of the three remaining, one survives. 

The Tac Squad slaughter the Rippers, leaving a toe-hold on the objective. 14 wounds on the charge! Thanks, Assault Doctrine! And the the Vindicator actually charges the Genestealer, trying to copy this success, but the sneaky bugger dodges the bulldozer at the last second. 

Where does this leave me? Well, I'm scoring a bit, but it's getting late in the day and I'm well behind. But the Tyranids are at least extremely thin on the ground now. If I can just line up some good shots on the Tyrant...

Objectives scored: 5 on Primaries

Tyranids Turn 4

Importantly, the long Termagant still controls the drop site, so I score ten VPs for Primaries, and another 3 for Secure Landing Sites (the two remaining central objectives are now worth 3 each).

There's not an awful lot to do. The lone 'Gant skips round to the other side of the Bikes so it's still in control of the objective... 

"I'm gonna get you, little bug..."

...and the Hive Tyrant rounds the corner of the castle to deal with the Bikes.

"...unless you Clever Girl me. Wuh-oh."

I don't recall whether the Tyrant cleared the Bikes away with just a Smite or if he needed to unload with the Venom Cannon, but there was no need to charge in.

You know it's bad news when your opponent isn't even concentrating on how he's killing you any more.

Objectives scored: 10 on Primaries, 3 on Secure Landing Sites

Mantis Warriors Turn 4

The Vindicator drives away from the Genestealer, leaving it wide open to a nice shot from the Intercessors. The Rhino advances round on that lone Termagant, and the Tac Squad dashes towards the Tyranid back line - now that they've scored the right flank objective, I know that it won't be there next turn, so it's time to leave it.

It's the right call. A few good shots thin out the Termagants, then with a re-roll (I love that regenerating CP!), they make a long charge in and smash all but two of the big ants to bits. 

The Rhino once more charges in, but even now I've remembered it gets the extra attack on the charge, it's not exactly tooled for ram raids. The Termagant scuttles round it and keeps charge of the objective. Damn!

Objectives scored: 10 on Primaries, 3 on Secure Landing Sites

Tyranids Turn 5

I only get five VPs for controlling the final drop site objective as the Tac marines have taken my home objective now. That does mean I score more for Secure Landing Sites: this turn the final drop site is worth 6VPs, though this is actually limited to 2 as I've maxed out on 15 VPs for that Secondary.

The lone Termagant once again dodges around the Mantis Warriors to keep control of the objective, whilst the Hive Tyrant returns to deal with the impudent Tactical Marines. Again, this is pretty straightforward and no charges are called for.

Because I now control two of the remaining three objectives, I finish my turn with one more score of Domination!

Objectives scored: 5 on Primaries, 6 on Secure Landing Sites, 3 on Domination

Mantis Warriors Turn 5

There's almost nothing left! Fist Sarge arrives a bit late to the party, manages to fire his plasma pistol threateningly into the air and leaves the Rhino to kill the last Termagant. 

"Okay, we're here! Let's kill some bugs, guys! Guys?"

The Vindicator grinds onwards, getting far enough round the corner of the big castle that it can finally get a line on the Tyrant. While the gunners cram the rest of the magazine into the breach for a last volley, the pintle guns take out the last two Termagants. 

Six shots with the big gun! I can hear Pootle grit his teeth...

Four hits, then three wounds. And he saves two and loses a mere three wounds - it's really not what I hoped for, and there's no time left for a last try. Game over!

Objectives scored: 5 on primaries, 5 on Thin Their Ranks

                                Tyranids score 5 on While We Stand We Fight

Result: 74-33 to Hive Fleet Afanc!

Locker Room

With hindsight, I can perhaps see where I went wrong. A bit more fire on the Genestealers in turn one, maybe with maxed-out anti-swarm Frag missiles from the Speeder, then charge them with the Bikers and finish them. Those jink saves would probably have kept the Broodlord penned in, plus I'd have had the middle objective and pushed the deep strike Rippers further off. 

I think it was critical that I got first turn. If you'd have had a round of shooting at the Stealers before I'd got Catalyst off that could have decisively swung the battle for the centre objective.

Then I'd probably still have had the Speeder to grab objectives and force the Tyrant to keep its head down until I could focus heavy weapons on it later. Don't split your fire, folks!

We both had some hopeless whiffs, too - the Genestealers failing to eat Sgt. Punch being just as bad as the seemingly unkillable Broodlord. Never in the history of inhuman conflict has so large a bug been so deserving of being such roadkill. 

Once again the game was determined by owning the objectives. I did a recalc of VPs based on changing two things: your Tac Squad being in control of the right-hand objective at the end of turn two and your Bikers killing all the Termagants on the left-hand objective on turn four. Neither of those seem particularly unlikely, but the two together would have reduced the winning margin by a cool 32 points. Another not-unlikely change would have been if the Vindicator had managed to mash the Hive Tyrant in turn 5: that would have been another 6 point swing. Still a win for the Nids, but only 51-48. 

Tell you what, after that I am really looking forward to October and some extra wounds for this army. I'm sure I'd have to have even fewer of them, but they will certainly take a lot more punishment! 

I enjoyed playing as Tyranids. As I noted above, I was lucky to get away with the Stealers. Although they didn't actually achieve all that much, they did distract the Mantis Warriors no end and allowed my Rippers and Gants to sit on the objectives for long enough to rack up enough VPs to win. 

Not making the cut for next time are Stalker Bolt Rifles (not enough shots), but I will happily disagree with whoever says Vindicators are useless. Maybe overpriced (I might rather have a Stalker, say, for a cheaper midfield guard/threat), but much more dangerous than advertised. 

I was impressed with the Vindicator and secretly glad that it didn't whiff horribly or spend the game locked up in close combat! With some cheap Scouts to act as a screen it'd be downright nasty. Thanks again for the game - always great fun and also a really evocative set-up. I don't really get the benefit over Skype, but the pics here (not to mention the video tour above) really show off what great (mostly scratch-built) scenery Kraken has put together. He's really good at this stuff - take a look at this for various bits and this for the castle and also this for general snow & ice effects.

Campaign Report

The Mantis Warriors arrived at Drawbridge to discover the planet already in the late early stages of Tyranid infestation. Winter had come early, and the few remaining spaceports were already gripped by snowstorms. The cold was also affecting the power grid - defence grids were on the blink, and small groups of Tyranids were breaching every defence line. 

These small groups joined forces, forming a small but still extremely numerous swarm just outside Fort Cullis, the largest open spaceport, before making a beeline for a central generator cluster. Under Captain Nampo, the Mantis Warriors launched what few assets they had to defend the generators. 

The battle was a disaster. 

First, Nampo severely underestimated the level of the Tyranid Threat. Blinded by snowstorms, early Land Speeder fly-bys failed to spot a large group of Genestealers led by a Broodlord amongst the myriad Termagant swarms. Whilst his heavy guns were trained on killing the Tyrant leading the swarm, as well as the Warriors providing nearby Synapse, the bulk of Captain Nampo's forces ran straight into a Genestealer ambush. Taking heavy casualties, the Mantis Warriors nevertheless managed to almost entirely exterminate the swarm. But its leading Tyrant slipped away in the snow, and both the Mantis Warriors commanders (Nampo himself and the accompanying Librarian) were badly wounded during the action.

Worse, it had been a wasted effort. The Mantis Warriors were too late - Termagants had already infested the site, chewing through cabling, excreting foul goo into ventilation ducts and rendering the entire plant inoperable. With Hagan Lamprey dropships inbound and not nearly enough functioning landing sites ready to accept them, the defence of Drawbridge looked to be doomed before it could really begin.