Final Fight: Astra Militarum vs Tyranids

 

One last time into that breach!

There might not be a release date yet, but the writing is on the wall for 9th. Before the opportunity is lost forever, like Roy Batty's tears, I reckoned I could learn one last codex in time for it to become irrelevant. Enter the Hagan Lampreys!

White Makes Right

The boys in white are rocking the snazzy Born Soldiers ability now, plus their own Storm Troopers. That means my ground troops get extra hits and auto-wounds on sixes, which could easily translate into quite a lot of hits with decent AP. Hotshots have better range now (thank god!), and Commissars can shout some pretty interesting extra orders when they want. 

But otherwise? This is a familiar army. Three squads of Scions, a couple of Commissars, a pair of Valkyries and three Taurox Primes to drive about in. If I can focus that firepower, I ought to leave some marks. 

The command squad structure is a change for the better - they now accompany the Warlord, waving their banners and medipacks. And Ogryn Bodyguards are stuck into the squad, albeit always at the front where they act as a big piece of ablative plate. Nice!

Arks of Omen Detachment, 1500 points

• HQ - Commissar with plasma pistol and power sword, Ogryn Bodyguard, extra Warlord trait that lets him give Regimental Orders
• HQ - Scion Command Squad. Tempestor Prime warlord with a trait that I forgot about and a Command Rod, a Medic, a Bannerman, a meltagun, a Master Vox, an Astropath with Psychic Barrier and an Ogryn Bodyguard
• Troops - 10 Scions with dual plasma and volley guns
• Troops - Same again
• Troops - 10 Scions with dual meltas, a grenade launcher and a flamer
• Elites - Commissar
• Elites - Regimental Enginseer 
• Elites - 4 Servitors, two with close combat thingies, one with heavy bolter, one with multimelta
• Dedicated Transports - One of each weapons variant of Taurox Prime (Missile Launcher, Battlecannon and Gatling Cannon)
• Flyers - Two Valkyries, both with heavy bolters, one with Cluster Rockets and Lascannon, the other with Hellfire Missiles and Lascannon

Levi'n La Vida Thian

Kas is my opponent for the evening. I once again find myself acting as warm-up for the omnipresent Man in the Hat - he's playing Winters tomorrow! Not with this army, though, so this is purely a stretching exercise before some proper fighting. 

Leviathan Tyranids here, with a smattering of troops running in ahead of some really nasty big bugs. A Tyrant with all sorts of survivability, a Trygon Prime and the Tyrannofex with its Rupture Cannon. Spread out and take the field, mugging anyone who gets too close and using Zooanthropes and Rupture shots to mop up major threats, I suspect. 

Arks of Omen Detatchment, 1500

• HQ - Hive Tyrant with Lash Whip and the Reaper of Obliterax, Heavy Venom Cannon, the feel no pain Warlord trait, Onslaught, Catalyst and (I think) adrenal glands
• HQ - Trygon Prime with its hilariously named guns
• Troops - 15 Termagaunts with Devourers
• Troops - 3 Tyranid Warriors with Adrenal Glands, Lash Whips, Bone Swords and Devourers
• Troops - 10 Hormagaunts
• Elites - 10 Genestealers
• Elites - 5 Genestealers
• Elites - 3 Zooanthropes with the Psychic Barrier power
• Fast Attack - 6 Spore mines and a Mucolid Spore
• Heavy Support - Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon

Mission and Terrain

A boggy ruin out in the jungles is tonight's field, all the better to showcase most of that newly-painted terrain I've been doing. One big central ruin with a couple of tall obscuring walls, then plenty of dense and difficult woods on all sides. 

I painted these hills that I may die on them

We go with a Maelstrom game after a bit of thought, and set to setting up. Diagonal short edges, five objectives and a twist that means nobody can deploy or deep strike in range of objectives, which is a bit of a blow to both of us. 

Deployment

My boys are all in their vans - command squad in the missile 'rox, a plasma team in each of the other two. Along with the guarded Commissar, they take a side of my deployment zone each. The melta squad is in one Valk, the spare commissar and the Enginseer plus his servitors are in the other, and they're all deepstriking.

Kas puts his Trygon and the Termagaunts underground, then the rest form two spearheads. The Tyrant and Warriors go on the forward edge, the Zooanthropes babysit the Hormagaunts, Tyrannofex and smaller Genestealer squad towards the back. 

Finally, the larger Genestealer squad is lurking in the midfield, ready to tuck in as soon as possible. 

Game!

Now, both of us are using armies we don't know terribly well. Kas keeps forgetting about his Synaptic Imperatives whilst I dither hopelessly with strats and orders. Given that none of what we learn during this game is going to stay useful for long, I won't dwell on it! 

Instead, I'll give you lots of photos and a fairly brief account of the game. 

I get first turn, and send the trucks forward towards the middle. My objective draw is downright cruel - nothing I can achieve, even with a redraw, so I ditch most of it, do some utterly useless shooting at the Hive Tyrant, kill six of the nearby Genestealers and then close my eyes and wait for the inevitable Tyrannohammer to drop.

Which it does! The backline seethed forward and grabbed nearby objectives.

An entirely new frontline turned up, consisting of ominous cysts. 

Kas's main plan was to advance the middle Genestealers forward, then try and Onslaught them with the Tyrant to scrag my backline, but he couldn't quite get those ducks in a row. 

Instead, the Warriors advanced into cover, 

the stuff at the back scuttled about happily

and the T-fex totalled the gatling Taurox without apparent effort. Jeepers, that gun got a glow-up lately!

My next turn had equally improbable objectives, but one of them was 'shoot stuff for wins', which I did my best with. Boys piled out of vans and started lighting up the Tyrant, who barely noticed. 

This does not leave me in a good place, of course - the Warriors and the Tyrant close with my forward squads...

...before piling in and roundly whipping everything in their path. My ablative Ogryn, who ought to be a fairly daunting prospect to one-shot even for a Tyrant, gets Obliteraxed in short order, and no amount of medic can help against that. Only the Medic survives this rout. 

Kas's turn sees him continuing to ramp up the pressure. The Zooanthropes sweep forward, wiping out what little they can target as the T-fex lays heavy damage on one of the jets, whilst the Warriors and Tyrant continue their rampage. 

My backline defence is pretty meagre, and the Termies have rocked up alongside the Trygon in the previous round, stealing my backline objective. I do my best to shift them, but Kas has remembered his Imperatives in time to give them a 5++. Only the Commissar is there to dispute the point, and the Termagaunts just manage to perforate his Ogryn with shooting and then overwatch, leaving him to tackle the swarm alone. Brave chap! He does quite well, too, but he can't keep them off the scoring point.

By this point, it's getting late. I've lost more than half my army plus really any chance of board control. That damn Tyrant shrugs off another round of shooting, although he's looking a bit battered, but he's quite happy to take on my tanks and rip them to bits. We call it a night, and I lick my wounds.

Result: Tyranid Victory!

Locker Room

It's in many ways a fitting end to 9th for me - wrestling with half-learned rules in a game that seemed slow despite its small size, and ended in a clear victory before we even reached half-time.

I'm not totally blaming the game itself! I got a stinking pair of early turns where my luck just laughed in my face. Ones and twos everywhere I looked, and Kas's armour saves were on point. I did spot several useful strats that might have helped me too late, though. 

Scions are clearly powerful, but shine best if they're established in nice neat firing lines with command shouting encouragement. Piling out of fast vehicles is all well and good for getting places, but your fire discipline clearly suffers. My original plan had been to stick them all together, maximise buffs and try and wipe local units out piecemeal before taking the field. I didn't do that, I waffled around in a reactive line that went nowhere and got pinned in my own back line. 

Not a bad night. But I do find my appetite has waned for 9th ed and its crazy jigsaw of colliding rules. Everything I've read from the new stuff looks simpler, solid and enticing (as a good PR campaign should make it look, of course), and I'm really just lying in wait for it now. Roll on 10th!

"Get back in, boys, we'll wait until the new release before re-engaging!"