What, me, Warrior? - Imperial Agents vs Tyranids

 Here we are, the year is nearly over and I've reached my third game of 40K!

Good old G-Dubs are cranking out advent army lists for the naughty and nice. Daily free rules seems like an excellent way of getting people back in the game. It's worked on Kas and me, at any rate, both returning after a long and busy autumn. 

End Weak Warriors

Kas has gone for the newest Tyranid flavour, the Warrior Bioform Onslaught, that makes your Warrior units tougher and better at holding ground. You can also plug alternative leaders into them using an Enhancement, leading to some interesting possibilities. There's a clear focus here, plus a few blobs of other stuff to hold ground with. 

• Winged Hive Tyrant - an advance and charge enhanced one
• Neurotyrant - able to lead a Warrior unit
• 2 Winged Warrior Primes - at least one with another enhancement that boosts to hit
• 6 Warriors with ranged weapons (2 venom cannons, 2 barbed stranglers, 2 deathspitters)
• 2 blocks of 3 Warriors with melee gear
• 10 Gargoyles
• 10 Termagants (fleshborers plus one of each special gun)

Sassy Sins

I'm taking the latest in Inquisitorial toys, the Veiled Blade Elimination Force. It cranks all four Assassins up to about fifteen and then pulls the dials off - they can use their best abilities twice (except for the Callidus, who was already too good) and gives each of them a fairly extreme obligatory enhancement. Especially the Callidus, who despite being too good, can now move round the field almost at will, bursting out of a friendly model and then returning to deep strike at the end of a turn. 

• Callidus
• Eversor
• Vindicare
• Culexus
• Inquisitor Kyria Draxus
• Ministorum Priest
• 10 Deathwatch Kill Team - Sarge has a xenophase blade and shield, someone has an Infernus heavy bolter, the rest have power weapons and bolters
• 12 Inquisitorial Agents - one of each special weapon (plasma pistol, force stave and eviscerator), Servitors with multimelta and heavy bolter and a pair of servo skulls

Map and Mission

We decided on playing a very simple 4-objective game on a 4x3' field. Hold one, two and more for the usual five pips a piece, plus 2 objective cards that Kas drew from his deck at the start of a turn. 

No maps tonight, I'm afraid, it was an impromptu affair without careful thinking involved!

The Tyrant, the Culexus and the Callidus are all in deep strike, everyone else is ready to rock. 

Fight!

I get the seaward side, Kas is barrelling in from the jungle. I also get first turn, which is a careful shuffle forwards, putting the Deathwatch on the rear objective and the Inquisitor and Agents towards the middle a bit. My only risk-taker is the Eversor, who advances towards the middle, relying on his Lone Op to stay safe.

The Vindicare makes a lovely first shot, nearly taking the head off a Winged Prime. Kas duly breaks into a contemplative sweat as I discard both my useless missions for an extra CP. 

His return play is a bit meatier. Melee warriors and small bugs seethe forwards on both flanks, and the shooty Warriors take up a firing position in the centre. 

When the Gargoyles target the Eversor, I over-react a bit and blow 2 CPs on making him +1T and 4++. Bit much against the seven shots that can reach him, really - I must admit that I slightly misheard who was targeting him, and thought it was the Warrior gunline. 

Obviously, he totally survives, and I'm so busy celebrating that immense achievement, I forget to use a useful strat when the Warriors target the Deathwatch with their longest-ranged spit rifles. 

See, I could have played 'Orbital Oversight' and made them impossible to shoot from beyond 18". Instead, they get plastered with venomous brambles - the shooty Warriors are well-buffed by strats and their leader, and they drop six of the hapless marines. Of course, all this gun would have been cremating Imperial Agents instead if I had used the strat, so it's all relatively moot. 

Kas also ditches a bunch of impossible missions and we head into the next turn with a pair of CPs each. 

I get a nice easy mission to hold the centre. Great! Although that means the Agents have to babysit it, and given that means staring down the Warrior guns, that's not brilliant. 

My counterplan is to squeeze one of the Agents until it pops and a Callidus bursts out. Her enhancement lets her do this after the unit has moved and still move herself, so she'll easily be able to charge those gun warriors and lock them down. 

The Culexus emerges right in front of the Neurotyrant, but a shade too close - the Warriors overwatch him. Sustained hits balance out the hit chance, and the Culexus barely survives. He does survive, though, and hammers the Neurotyrant with his deadly eye, leaving it barely alive. The Vindicare attempts to close the deal, but bounces his shot. 

The Agents and surviving Deathwatch do a bit of reasonable shooting, picking up a couple of Warriors from the flanks, and the Eversor mows down a few Gargoyles, then launches himself into the nearest enemy. 

He's keyed up on his Frenzon - 9 attacks with Sustained 3 ought to be spicy!

It's not. I roll no sixes, kill off the wounded Prime and injure a second Warrior, then get rinsed by the sheer volume of return attacks. This performance is mirrored by the Callidus, who kills a Warrior and a half out of six, then vanishes in a blur of talons. Hmm - perhaps this Execution Team might have worked better as an actual team?

Oh well - no time to think about tactics, I'm getting shot at! Kas's next turn goes pretty much as you'd expect - the Winged Tyrant turns up and mobs my back line, whilst my front line vanishes entirely in a hail of corrosive goo. The only gristle in the stew is the Culexus, who completely shrugs the Neurotyrant's attempt to bake his brain and very nearly escapes the rest of the shooting, falling in the end to a humble Termagant's fleshborer. 

At least the Tyrant whiffs, bouncing off the Deathwatch Sergant's shield and getting stabbed for a couple of wounds by my combined talents. That's not really enough to slow it down much, and despite a next turn attempt to headshot it with the Vindicare's pistol, the combat is a pretty one-way affair after that. 

Tabled by turn three - Warhammer 40K, I've been away too long!

Locker Room

A lot of unforced errors on my part, really. Mostly assuming the Assassins were able to take on big, resilient squads of Warriors by themselves, and also walking blithely towards a murderous gunline while they did it. I seem to have reverted to WW1 tactics in my absence from the front lines. 

The smart play, we decided afterwards, would have been to concentrate the Assassins on a given flank whilst keeping well back and out of sight/range using cover or strategems. The murder coven is ridiculously nippy, particularly the multiple teleports the enhanced Callidus can do, or the double Frenzon speed on the Eversor. Pick off the leader beasts with the Vindicare, kill one flank and double back to deal with the Tyrant, and hope not to get scored off the objectives in the interim. Still a tall order, but a much smarter plan than the Leeroy Jenkins nonsense I tried. 

Both these Detachments are good fun, though - the Warriors are a real threat in this format, being tougher and punchier than usual. A skilled player could probably pull some lethal shenanigans with the Assassins, too. I'd definitely try them again!

I have the taste of blood again. Expect more 40K shortly!