Time for a quick bout! It's me, Kraken, facing off against my kindly host Rapid with 1200 points of 40K. Been a while, so it's good to get back in the saddle. Command throne. Whatever these Knights have.
Hot Summer Knights
House Hawkshroud seems, on a cursory examination of the new codex, to be something I can get my head round. Faster and choppier, and even more honourable than your average knight. They also get extra CPs and can ignore terrain penalties on charges and assaults as long as I keep this honour. No low blows, then.
1200 points doesn't give you much, so I take an Errant as the Warlord (he holds a grudge against a specified model for the battle, today the Swarmlord), and upgrade him as a Herald, which lets him gift Armigers an invulnerable save when he shouts at them. He's got a big fist, plus a relic that dishes out masses of mortal wounds, so he ought to make paste out of whatever he connects with.
(We're playing pre-matched play update lists here, so 12 CPs and relics and traits for free.)
Backing him up are a chainsword-wielding Paladin with a battlecannon, plus one each of Helverin and Warglaive. My plan is simple - romp forward to the middle and then murder anything that comes at me, and my Oaths back this up. Don't run away and don't lose objective markers, broadly, again relatively simple stuff that I hope I can remember!
House Hawkshroud Super-Heavy Detachment
- Knight Errant, warlord with Foresworn Duty trait, Herald, Helm of the Nameless Warrior relic, Power Fist, Thermal Lance and Ironhail Missile Launcher, melta gun
- Knight Paladin with chainsword and battlecannon, ironhail heavy stubber
- Armiger Warglaive, Thermal Lance, Chainglaive and melta
- Armiger Helverin, twin Helverin autocannons, ironhail heavy stubber
Swarm Weather
New Tyranids have already achieved a bit of infamy and a thwack with the nerf hammer, but that hasn't landed on these lists. Rapid is trying out the all-new non-catapult Swarmlord, who looks like he can lay a lot of hurt on anything trying to stand up to him, along with some Gargoyles and a couple of small Warrior units. There's also the towering joy of a Dimachaeron, who I have sadly missed off the maps altogether, but was very much there in person!
After that, though, come some of the most feared units from the new codex - Zooanthropes and a Neurothrope, who have always been pretty boss to be fair, and the undisputed lord of the skies that is a Harpy. Their adaptations today allow them to ignore all Overwatch and get a +1 to charge rolls, which is pretty fearsome on 'Nids.
Again, we're all pre-balance changes here, so I'm going to be watching in awe as the overlapping Synaptic Imperatives boost this army. My own 'Nids have yet to get a try with these new rules, and have already missed the boat on the pre-nerf!
Hive Fleet Bwlch Patrol Detachment
- HQ - Neurothrope, Warlord with Direct Guidance trait and Resonance Barb relic, Catalyst, Paroxysm and Psychic Scream powers
- HQ - Swarmlord, Catalyst and Smite powers
- Troops - 11 Gargoyles
- Troops - 3 Tyranid Warriors with Devourers, Bone Swords and Lash Whips
- Troops - 3 Tyranid Warriors, same again
- Elites - 3 Zooanthropes, Psychic Scream and Smite
- Fast Attack - Dimachaeron, adaptive physiology - Enraged Reserves
- Flyer - Harpy, twin heavy venom cannon, adaptive physiology - Dermic Symbiosis
Terrain and Deployment
Rapid is hosting, with a cracking spread of shattered ruins, craters and tank traps for our massive mecha battle. We're keeping the game as outright simple to comprehend as we can, so there are five objectives, worth 4 VPs for having one, having two and having more each turn from two onwards, but we aren't doing secondaries.
Set up leaves us like this:
So my guys are spread out across the deployment zone ready to lance forwards with the Tyranids doing more or less the same. The Dimachaeron was up on the north side, in front of the Warrior units and heading up the charge.
In an unusually audacious display of dice-rolling, I steal the first turn. Chaarge!
Knights Turn 1
My plan is to rush to the middle and hold there, so I do that. The Warglaive is out front, backed by the Errant Warlord, with the Helverin and Paladin taking north and centre respectively.
Shooting is miserable - I can't see the Zooanthropes, who would be a priority target, so decide to focus fire the Harpy. Despite most of my guns hitting it, the Dermic Symbiosis it has shrugs off most of the damage, and the lone thermal hit I manage rolls and rerolls low, so I fail to do more than annoy it. And I'm out of charge range, so that's my lot. At least the gauntlet is thrown down!
The Tyranids broadcast a few imperatives - warp shielding from the Zooanthropes, then an assortment of buffs from the Swarmlord and Neurothrope - then they all seethe forwards.
The Harpy divebombs the Paladin for a couple of wounds, then the Zooanthropes poke their throbbing brains round the corner of the building and start smiting, gouging seven wounds off the Warglaive once all the other hive minds chip in. Less than I was afraid of, but certainly plenty!
Blasts from the Harpy and the Warriors reduce the Helverin to less than half wounds, then the Dimachaeron (not pictured) charges in and eats it whole. No explosions, just awful burping noises.
Well, at least the enemy are within charge range now. Grimly, I swear to avenge my fallen squire, and the remaining three knights spread out across the midline and pick out their targets.
Shooting takes a few more wounds off the Harpy and melts a very great deal off the Swarmlord. There's even enough to tickle the Dimachaeron, but they're all still standing. So I charge them all!
The Errant goes first, crashing into the Swarlord who he's sworn to destroy. Adjusting his fist to sweeping strikes, my plan is to max out my attacks and hope that the Nameless Warrior relic kicks in. I only need two wounds to finish the tyrant bug, after all.
But I don't get them - lots of hits, sure, but none of the sixes I need to get the Mortals flowing. Only two actually wound Lordy, and the first one gets deflected. And he can ignore the first one to get through to him, so he's still alive! And pretty pissed - his return swings leave me on a single wound, which is pretty impressive.
The Warglaive slams into a Warrior pack, but Rapid is waiting for this and pops a strat that means my attacks do less damage than usual. And given that I'm still rolling in whiff mode, I fail to fell even one of the beasts in return, taking more than enough wounds to finish me off in return. A second knight collapses...
While all this was going on, the Dimachaeron interrupts and has a pretty good go at bashing the Paladin up, leaving him wounded but not beaten. In return, the chainsword slices the chompy bug clean in half, and I've finally taken a scalp!
Tyranids Turn 2
Alas, I'm now very much in the thick of the swarm, and they don't waste time.
A flurry of psychic activity engulfs the Errant, who thumbs his self-destruct button repeatedly. Using a strat, I blow myself up, determined to score that Swarmlord. But even detonating in his face fails - a bunch of Gargoyles snuff it, presumably forming an impromptu screen to save their overlord, but he takes a measly lone wound himself and survives.
Not so the lone Paladin - he staggers to his knees under a barrage of Devourer Worms and massive Venom Cannon rounds. But he too detonates, and rolls mighty boxcars for the blast radius! Not that it finishes anyone off, but it's still fun to see a few more bugs topple as I join the great big round table in the sky.
Game - a turn two tabling!
Locker Room
Hilarious! If a bit short - in retrospect, I should have hung back for a turn or two longer, rather than waltzing gracefully into Smite range. My shooting probably wouldn't have been as whiffy as it was two turns in a row (worse, probably, knowing my dice), and the extra damage might have let me land a few critical blows on the charge rather than the bounces I managed. I'll know for next time!
Tyranids seem quite the foe on that showing, I can't wait to try my own Hive Fleet in action sometime soon.
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