Major Bluff's Trial by Fire: 3k

And you even get edited pictures this time! Aren't you all lucky. Just remember- you can click on the pics to make them look bigger. It's awesome.
First the lists. Some small changes to the list I posted earlier, namely switched to 2 squads of 3 sentinels and the melta bombs for an eviscerator on the priest.
The other forces:

Tyranids
Winged hive tyrant with toxin sacs, flesh hooks, devo, lashwhip and bonesword
Hive tyrant with enhanced senses, flesh hooks, venom cannon, strangler, 2 tyrant guard
2 squads of 3 warriors, all with enhanced senses and extended carapace and various guns
2 lictors
2 squads of 8 gaunts with fleshborers
2 squads of 8 stealers with flesh hooks, scuttlers and extended carapace
Sniperfex (venom cannon, strangler)
Devofex (?)

Tau
Shas’El with plasma, missile, multitracker, HW drone, 2 shield drones
2 bodyguards with plasma, missile, HW multi, targeting array
3 Crisis suits with TL flamers and missiles, HW drone and 2 shield drones
3 squads of 6 fire warriors all in devilfishes with sms, targeting array, multitracker and disruption pods
Hammerhead with railgun sms, target lock, multitracker, disruption pods
Skyray w/ SMS, target lock, targeting array, multitracker, disruption pods
2 broadsides with adv. stabilization system

Marines
Captain on bike with relic blade
2 squads of 6 bikes with multimelta attack bikes and powerfist
2 tac squads with lascannon, power fist, flamer; in rhinos with extra armor
2 attack bikes with multimeltas
6 vanguard veterans with jumppacks, 4 melta bombs and sergeant with relic blade


Mission: Seize ground (3 objectives)

Deployment: Dawn of War

Teams: Guard and Marines vs Tau and Nids, 1500 points per player (3000 points per side)

Glory be- the Imperium is united at last in its hatred of foul xenos! We chose to place our objective close to their side of the board, as we are a fairly get-close-and-friendly type force. The cowardly xenos of course chose to deploy their objectives in their deployment zone. Fools…



Nids deployed their walking hive tyrant up in front of the center objective with one squad of gaunts behind, and the other squad of gaunts near the right objective. Tau battlesuits deployed behind the left objective with Devilfish backup. We decided to use our tactical acumen and only deploy two rhinos first, so that the tac squads could fire their lascannons on turn 1.
In reserve: my entire force minus the hq and psykers. The latter part was probably a mistake- I should have kept everything in reserve, night fight protection be damned. All others are set to outflank. 2 genestealers and 2 lictors are also in reserve on the xenos side.

1st turn: the xenos move in from their board edge and do a lot of shooting. We remember that night fight rules are in effect halfway through their shooting phase and redo some, much to the groaning of all. Thanks to night fight all that happens is our left rhino is shaken. Yay nightfall!



We moved in on the right flank, bikes turbo boosting and PBS failing to harm anything due to night fight.

2nd turn: 1 lictor and 1 squad of genestealers come in, the stealers right next to my command chimera (rule number 1: don’t forget about the genestealers!) and the lictor in the forest, but fortunately far enough out of range to assault our bikes. Everything on the left flank moved up as well. Shooting stunned my command chimera, shook two of the rhinos and picked off a bike in each squad. Genestealers assaulted my chimera but only managed to shake it. Truly our faith shielded our glorious commander to make our turn a righteous one…



Reserve rolls were blessed by the Emperor himself- everything except for our sentinels came in on the right flank. I annihilated the genestealers with my infantry mob and plasma gun fire and killed the carnifex with my melta chimeras. The Psyker Primaris failed epicly here, only rolling 2 attacks and missing with both. The sentinels failed to do much due to disruption pods, but I could take that. My PBS almost annihilated a gaunt squad that was on an objective, reducing it to one model. The bunker in the middle of our deployment zone offended the Emperor, so our multimelta bikes burned it to the ground. Shooting went less well against the hive tyrant thanks to armor and cover. The bikes then assaulted, losing one of their number but killing a tyrant guard




3rd turn: stealers came in on the left flank (away from my guardsmen, thank the Emperor!) and a lictor managed to deep strike mishap to just within one inch of my outermost guardsman. A roll of 1 on the mishap table saw the guardsman accidentally stepping on the lictor and drowning it. Poor little freak of nature…
Shooting killed an insignificant number of guardsmen, 3 marines that were in the center of the map and, unfortunately, 4 of our vanguard veterans. The guardsmen tried to flee, but the commissar’s gun and unshakeable faith made sure that they would stand their ground. The marines in the center of the board proved to be less honorable, showing cowardice in the face of the enemy and fled the board. Seems that the Adeptus Astartes may need to come under the auspices of the Departmento Munitorum as well... Assault saw another marine bike die.



My sentinel squad came in on the left flank, taking out a battlesuit and demoralizing its comrade into running off the board.



My melta chimeras eliminated the warriors on our right flank while my guardsmen swept the gaunts. My command chimera managed to get a wound on the carnifex, and my psyker battle squad killed a few shield drones at long range with their blast attack, making the interesting tactical decision to leave their shaken and turretless chimera to do so. The marines repositioned to kill the devilfish but only managed to immobilize and kill one of its weapons. In close combat, the remaining tyrant guard was eliminated.

4th turn: The Flyrant moves to join in the combat with the captain’s bike squad, and the Tau repositioned to better get on the objectives. Most of the enemy flak turned towards the PBS as I had planned (?). The PBS is decimated and breaks and there is much shooting of my poor guardsmen as well. The Marine captain is finally struck down by the powerful blows of the Tyrant and the rest of the squad is wiped by the newly arrived flyrant.



The rest of the turns became a bit of a blur as we realized that it was getting very late. Basically what happened was my scout sentinels on the left flank continued to be stalemated in combat while the rest of my force smashed through the Nid and Tau lines, claiming the right objective while the two remaining marine bikes and vanguard veterans contested the center objective while under heavy fire. Everything that stood in front of my men died to concentrated melta and plasma gun fire and my chimeras continued to be invincible, even shrugging off a direct hit from a hammerhead railgun thanks to a 1 rolled on penetration. The partially destroyed chimera that had held the PBS even managed to take out the wounded walking tyrant with a very lucky heavy bolter shot before being slaughtered by the flyrant. I somehow destroyed the railgun on the hammerhead, probably with a lucky lascannon shot.



Turn 5 ended with Guard holding right most objective, firewarriors and genestealers holding the left most, and the central one contested thanks to the brave space marines. On turn 6 Russell moved his flyrant in on a desperate bid to contest the objective that my guardsmen held, but focused fire from my mechanized squads eliminated it easily. We decided to call the game there as it was getting very late, ending the game in a draw. We didn’t have time to tally up victory points, but even if we did I would still say that it was a draw- it was a very, very close game. If we had gone to turn 7 I think the Imperials would have managed to squeeze in a win at least on victory points thanks to the large amounts of heavy firepower that I was about to bring to bear on the Tau skimmers and the few remaining Tyranid warriors. The Marines had given of themselves dearly, but at least the Tyranid infestation was largely eliminated and the xenos had been halted this day thanks to the sheer weight of the Imperial Guard.

Tune in tomorrow for an in depth after action report.