This past Monday saw an all day apocalypse battle at the Battle For Salvation gaming club-Tyranids Vs. The Imperium Of Man. With the Tyranids down on serious points I added my old bug models from Space Hulk and Space Crusade to the brood- pictured above. I like the older genestealer models with mine done in the classic purple of Space Hulk along with two groups of old school warriors. Thirty spore mines and a dozen or so lictors were also placed under my command while another team mate commanded the swarms of genestealers, and gaunts, with a third team mate taking the carnifexes and remaining warriors.
Against the Imperium we faced an entire imperial guard armored company, a baneblade, titan, black templar space marines with a few land raiders, and another sizable imperial guard army mixing tanks and troops. I was feeling pretty confident with all our bugs till I saw so many tanks, the two super heavies and maybe a hundred or so templars- half in the land raiders and the other half in drop pods.
The board for the battle was beyond fantastic- custom made for the very event by one of the club guys with a desert on one side and a ruined imperial city separated by a channel of water on the other. Thee objective markers were placed on each side as each team sat down to strategize.
Arrayed against so many tanks and templates there was no way the Tyranids would survive a frontal assault, especially given that the city was only accessible by the three bridges. Even if we did make it forward the bottlenecking of the bridges would have been a kill zone of carnage so the Tyranids needed another way, another plan.
So, team Tyranids came up with the plan to give the illusion that we were going to swarm across the board only to use strategic assets to flank from the sides and rear. We also voted to ignore the titan as I convinced my fellow team mates to make the baneblade target number one, not for the templates it lays down, but for the psychological value of destroying it like nothing. We also needed a way to hold the objectives on our side so I volunteered to deploy my shooty warriors and ‘stealers there to hold and counter attack the objectives if needed- which I figured would try to be taken by the templar drop pods. We also did a little pre-game psychology asking about how much time we could vote on deployment, maximum times, etc. to give the illusion that we obviously needed the time to set up our bugs- all the time gambling that the Imperium would underbid us hoping to stall our deployment so they got to go first and we get the valuable “last turn”. As a side note in the past few apocalypse games I’ve played it seems that unlike regular 40K you want to always get the first turn to blast away since so many models are on the board.
As planned the Imperium won deployment and first turn setting up a devastating gunline of tanks, with the super heavies and troops behind them, and long range basilisk tanks beyond that. Assets were spent on mine fields and razor wire backing the tanks and bridges adding to the kill zone. Truly anything approaching through the desert waste leading to the city would have been wiped out before even arriving at the bridges.
Tyranids deployed in under a minute as I placed my warriors and genestealers behind cover in the sand wastes and next to the objectives there. I think the Tyranids really puzzled the Imperium side with so little deployed.
Imperium turns one and two were very eerie since only a dozen or so ‘nids were present (mine) taking the brunt of basilisk fire with only losing two warriors. Black Templar land raiders advanced out beyond the bridges into the sands perhaps unsure of what approached. At the bottom of turn two the Tyranids attacked with swarms of genestealers crashing in on one side of the city and carnifexes on the other. For my half I brought in my lictors- deepstriking out of cover to assault and rend tanks- while peppering a few bio-acid spore mines into the lines of tanks. Moving a fleeting the ‘stealers they got into the assault with more then one tank which was rended to destruction as the carnifexes made quick work of anything in their way. Two ‘fexes and a hive tyrant ganged up on the baneblade smashing through structure points with ease obliterating the super heavy in a cataclysmic explosion. The Tyranid assault was so devastating that it looked as if the Imperium line wouldn’t last another round. With so many tanks towards the front unable to turn and face around or with lines of fire blocked by buildings and ruined tanks the Imperium counter attack was blunted for a moment but then picked up momentum dishing out punishing damage with close range battle cannon and land raider fire. To make matters worse, as predicted, the templars also drop podded into the sand wastes near the objectives dishing out withering bolter and flamer fire to my genestealer broods who thankfully held.
Taking massive loses to the genestealer broods in the city we gave up on that side concentrating on the other bringing in more carnifexes to secure the objective as our gaunts came in and counter attacked the templars in the sands. Legions of gaunts tore up the templars as my few remaining ‘stealers made a snack of a black templar assault squad and chaplain.
Back in the city my lictors continued to run around rending vehicles as I dropped twenty bio acid spore mines on a small ruined building packed with imperial guard soldiers trying to hold an objective. Hitting and scattering the spores made a mess of the guard there killing one squad and breaking another which were then mopped up by the carnifexes.
Bringing on dozens of conscripts from reserve the Imperium lead another counter attack as their remaining land raiders and titan focused their fire on dropping our carnifexes below scoring which were holding the objectives. At the end of their turn it appeared the game was heading towards a draw at best as the Tyranid dead were piling up and the carnifexes below scoring with multiple wounds as we went into the last round. Rolling beyond well our carnifex player made multiple regeneration biomorph rolls on the ‘fexes bringing them back up to scoring winning two more objectives for the Tyranids, swinging the momentum of the game to a Tyranids victory.
Against the Imperium we faced an entire imperial guard armored company, a baneblade, titan, black templar space marines with a few land raiders, and another sizable imperial guard army mixing tanks and troops. I was feeling pretty confident with all our bugs till I saw so many tanks, the two super heavies and maybe a hundred or so templars- half in the land raiders and the other half in drop pods.
The board for the battle was beyond fantastic- custom made for the very event by one of the club guys with a desert on one side and a ruined imperial city separated by a channel of water on the other. Thee objective markers were placed on each side as each team sat down to strategize.
Arrayed against so many tanks and templates there was no way the Tyranids would survive a frontal assault, especially given that the city was only accessible by the three bridges. Even if we did make it forward the bottlenecking of the bridges would have been a kill zone of carnage so the Tyranids needed another way, another plan.
So, team Tyranids came up with the plan to give the illusion that we were going to swarm across the board only to use strategic assets to flank from the sides and rear. We also voted to ignore the titan as I convinced my fellow team mates to make the baneblade target number one, not for the templates it lays down, but for the psychological value of destroying it like nothing. We also needed a way to hold the objectives on our side so I volunteered to deploy my shooty warriors and ‘stealers there to hold and counter attack the objectives if needed- which I figured would try to be taken by the templar drop pods. We also did a little pre-game psychology asking about how much time we could vote on deployment, maximum times, etc. to give the illusion that we obviously needed the time to set up our bugs- all the time gambling that the Imperium would underbid us hoping to stall our deployment so they got to go first and we get the valuable “last turn”. As a side note in the past few apocalypse games I’ve played it seems that unlike regular 40K you want to always get the first turn to blast away since so many models are on the board.
As planned the Imperium won deployment and first turn setting up a devastating gunline of tanks, with the super heavies and troops behind them, and long range basilisk tanks beyond that. Assets were spent on mine fields and razor wire backing the tanks and bridges adding to the kill zone. Truly anything approaching through the desert waste leading to the city would have been wiped out before even arriving at the bridges.
Tyranids deployed in under a minute as I placed my warriors and genestealers behind cover in the sand wastes and next to the objectives there. I think the Tyranids really puzzled the Imperium side with so little deployed.
Imperium turns one and two were very eerie since only a dozen or so ‘nids were present (mine) taking the brunt of basilisk fire with only losing two warriors. Black Templar land raiders advanced out beyond the bridges into the sands perhaps unsure of what approached. At the bottom of turn two the Tyranids attacked with swarms of genestealers crashing in on one side of the city and carnifexes on the other. For my half I brought in my lictors- deepstriking out of cover to assault and rend tanks- while peppering a few bio-acid spore mines into the lines of tanks. Moving a fleeting the ‘stealers they got into the assault with more then one tank which was rended to destruction as the carnifexes made quick work of anything in their way. Two ‘fexes and a hive tyrant ganged up on the baneblade smashing through structure points with ease obliterating the super heavy in a cataclysmic explosion. The Tyranid assault was so devastating that it looked as if the Imperium line wouldn’t last another round. With so many tanks towards the front unable to turn and face around or with lines of fire blocked by buildings and ruined tanks the Imperium counter attack was blunted for a moment but then picked up momentum dishing out punishing damage with close range battle cannon and land raider fire. To make matters worse, as predicted, the templars also drop podded into the sand wastes near the objectives dishing out withering bolter and flamer fire to my genestealer broods who thankfully held.
Taking massive loses to the genestealer broods in the city we gave up on that side concentrating on the other bringing in more carnifexes to secure the objective as our gaunts came in and counter attacked the templars in the sands. Legions of gaunts tore up the templars as my few remaining ‘stealers made a snack of a black templar assault squad and chaplain.
Back in the city my lictors continued to run around rending vehicles as I dropped twenty bio acid spore mines on a small ruined building packed with imperial guard soldiers trying to hold an objective. Hitting and scattering the spores made a mess of the guard there killing one squad and breaking another which were then mopped up by the carnifexes.
Bringing on dozens of conscripts from reserve the Imperium lead another counter attack as their remaining land raiders and titan focused their fire on dropping our carnifexes below scoring which were holding the objectives. At the end of their turn it appeared the game was heading towards a draw at best as the Tyranid dead were piling up and the carnifexes below scoring with multiple wounds as we went into the last round. Rolling beyond well our carnifex player made multiple regeneration biomorph rolls on the ‘fexes bringing them back up to scoring winning two more objectives for the Tyranids, swinging the momentum of the game to a Tyranids victory.
1 comments:
very nice to read such an unexpected tactic for nids. I'm going to remember this one.
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