Monday, June 8, 2009

3k Nids vs Imperium, and some pics!

Before we begin the battle report, a few pics of some of my (mostly) completed models!



Here is a very blurry shot of my take on Marbo. I mostly used parts from the Catachan command sprue to put him together. The demo charge is made out of a voxcaster and the ripper pistol is a trimmed down lasgun without the stock (also from the command sprue). I’ll try to get a non-blurry pic of him up at some point, but no matter how hard I try Marbo tries to stay hidden. Hrrm…



And here is a pic of the 6 vets that are ready for the table top. I used a mix of Cadian and Catachan bits on them and so far I like the result, especially the camo on the pants. I’m still having a lot of trouble in getting skin tones that I like- right now I’m using a layer of bronzed flesh followed by a layer of elf flesh, but it’s always either too orange or too white for my liking. Any ideas?

Anyway, Battle Report!

3000 points of Tyranids vs 1500 points of IG and 1500 points of Space Marines
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Spearhead



The Nids got first turn and chose to set up in the upper right corner, leaving us with the bottom left. The large ruin in the center of the map provided nice LOS blocking terrain, but also opened the door for the broodlord and his retinue to hide in the ruins. On their turn the nids mostly charged forwards, shaking my lascannon Russ but doing very little damage besides that. We returned fire, my dakka-Russ taking large chunks out of the Without Number swarm of gaunts and my ally’s bikes moving fast to flank in.

Second turn saw the arrival of three squads of genestealers from the right flank. One squad ran in and destroyed the battle cannon on my dakka-Russ and immobilized it while others swooped in on the marine bikes. Shooting from the ‘Fexes annihilated my melta vet squad and more bikes were laid low by shooting. On our turn my astropath helped my outflanking platoon come in on the correct side of the board… for the most part. Al’Rahem decided that it would be wiser to move to the other flank, where he was promptly devoured by more outflanking genestealers on the next turn.



Flamers plus demo charges wiped out most of the ‘stealer broods on the right flank and Marbo valiantly tried to kill gargoyles with his own charge but failed miserably. More shooting occurred, the Broodlord’s retinue was wiped out by my plasma command squad, and we moved on.



Nid return fire was getting desperate. Most of it centered on one squad of bikes, which was reduced to two fleeing members by the end of the turn. They tried to kill my command squad but were unable, leaving them to stand in the smoking ruins of their chimera staring down a massive flyrant. One brood of genestealers tried assaulting my platoon and were savagely beaten down for their efforts. Quantity is truly a quality all its own.
On our turn I employed one of my favorite maneuvers: the refused flank.



This way no more genestealers could outflank onto our right flank, as they couldn’t be placed on the board without being at least within an inch of one of my troopers. Yay Imperial Guard!

My stormtroopers deep struck in, and with the commander yelling out “Bring it DOWN!” the flyrant fell to massed plasma and meltagun fire. I also got exceedingly lucky when my lascannon Russ managed to get 2 wounds off of a wounded carnifex with 2+ armor and a cover save, allowing Marbo to finish the job with his sniper pistol.



From here the tide turned more and more into our favor, and our opponents called the game at the bottom of turn 4. I’m not sure if we would have automatically pulled off the victory, but we acceded to our opponents’ wishes.

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Over all I think the army list worked out very well. I need to work on using Harker’s squad and Marbo a bit better, but I really loved the amount of mobility and firepower that I had at my disposal. Wherever there was a threat, I had a response, and where there were no threats I could dish out the pain. The SWSs in particular were amazing- demo charges are apparently worth it, especially against hordes.

That’s about all for now; I’ll work on the vets some more and include a few pics of how I do it.

2 comments:

Admiral Drax said...

Looks good, and well done!

For white skin I just use Tallarn Flesh (foundation) because it's such a great shade and can go straight on. I don't go in for mega-detail in my minis, but it's also a really easy colour to give definition to with a simple dab of wash on the face.

I also try to use a range of skin colours to make life more interesting, and so my troops aren't quite so...y'know...white.

Are those diamonds on your bases squad markings? I use a coloured and numbered flash on the rear of the bevelled edges of mine, which works well.

Max said...

Thanks for the tip! Another trip to the FLGS for Tallarn, and maybe some other colors to keep me up to PC code.

The diamonds are squad markings of a sort. I have a playing card theme for my army, of which the diamonds and spades are the more elitely trained troops as opposed to the hearts and clubs. I'll post some more pics of my army and some fluffy stuff at some point or other...