Battle Report: Chaos vs. Tau 5-11-07

C. vs. Marcos - 1500 points - Chaos Choice (Seek and Destroy)

(missed the setup picture)

Turn 1

Chaos: Chaos starts off well, rolling to choose the mission type and get first turn. Pressing the advantage, their big guns take down several enemy skimmers: the terminators blow up one of the piranhas with their reaper autocannons, the obliterators stun the devilfish and destroy its missile system, and the havocs stun one of the hammerheads. The berzerkers press forward in their rhino, followed closely by the flying possessed.

Tau: Shrugging off their early setbacks, the Tau regroup and counterattack. The crisis suits jump from cover and take out the rhino with plasma and rocket fire, killing four of its passengers in the process. The last two berzerkers are entangled in the wreckage. One of the hammerheads lays fire into the havocs in the bunker, killing two and sending the rest falling back.

Turn 2

Chaos: The havocs regroup, readying their weapons. The obliterators move out from cover and finish off the stunned hammerhead. The possessed fly out from behind the rhino and try to take down the piranha in midair but fail to inflict any damage.

Tau: The piranha flies away from the possessed and try to shoot up the entangled berzerkers, missing them. Its gun drones detach to create additional targets. The battlesuits and ion cannon hammerhead shoot up the possessed, killing all but the aspiring champion. A very close call for chaos - both of the summoning units for the bloodletters were nearly wiped out this turn.

Turn 3

Chaos: The possessed champion flies over the rhino and smashes up the gun drones. The berzerkers extract themselves from the rhino wreck and leap to catch the piranha. The chaos heavy weapons stun up the center devilfish.

Tau: The hammerhead finishes off the berzerkers with its ion cannon. The other hammerhead and devilfish circle around the chaos position, and the stealth suits streak forward with their jump packs.

Turn 4

Chaos: The bloodletters arrive from the warp, just in time to save the possessed champion and finish off the circling piranha. The terminators fire their reapers at the stunned devilfish and bring it down, killing four of its fire warrior passengers in the process.

Tau: The Tau Shas'el and the ion cannon hammerhead move forward and kills two bloodletters, and the other hammerhead and devilfish circle further around the left chaos flank.

Turn 5

Chaos: The terminators kill one of the approaching stealthsuits, and the obliterators destroy the remaining railgun hammerhead.

Tau: The battlesuits and and stealthsuits move to the center and the devilfish moves closer to the chaos position. Suddenly, something large stirs behind the trees!

Turn 6

Chaos: The demon prince flies over the treeline and drops in on the devilfish, but is simply unable to destroy the swiftly moving transport.

Tau: The firewarriors in the devilfish deploy in front of the demon prince and open fire with their pulse rifles. After the smoke clears, the chaos HQ is still standing, unharmed.

The match ends in a draw.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs. Orks 5-11-07

Bully vs. Pat - 1500 Points - Take and Hold

Turn 1

Imperial Guard: Sentinels and tanks move out from behind the wooded hills to fire on Pat's approaching horde. Several orks and gretchin fall to rocket and ordnance damage.

Orks: The orks advance and chew up a couple of the Guard infantry squads. The rokkit buggies flank out on the basilisk and hit it, shaking the crew.

Turn 2

Imperial Guard: As the shaken basilisk moves into better cover, one of the infantry command squads crawls out of hiding directly in front of the advancing rokkit buggies and open fire with their special weapons, destroying them but losing their plasma gunner in the process to a weapon overheat. More orks are killed by various guard units and the battle cannon turret on the looted Leman Russ is destroyed.

Orks: The skorcha buggies take vengeance on the command squad that killed their rokkit buggy buddies, setting them ablaze and wiping them out. More guardsmen are wiped out by big shootas and rokkits on the far side of their battle line.

Turn 3

Imperial Guard: Concentrated fire kills ten grots and sends one of the squads fleeing to hide. Lascannons and tanks pour fire into the ork walkers, destroying the dreadnought and the big shoota on one of the killa kans. One of the skorcha buggies is also destroyed.

Orks: The gretchin slaver on the far side points his rokkit stick in the rough direction of the guard hellhound - a moment later and the hellhound explodes in a ball of flame. The grots move up behind, inspired by the nearby warboss in mega armor. The big mek struggles to repair the looted russ to no avail.

Turn 4

Imperial Guard: The heavy weapons again target the ork walkers, destroying their remaining shooting weapon (rokkit launcher). The second command squad emerges from hiding and opens fire on the closest slugga boyz squad, killing four of them. A few more orks die from guard shooting. The big mek again fails to repair the leman russ. An infantry squad moves to occupy the defense turret and make ready for the remaining skorcha buggy, now making its way towards them.

Orks: The skorcha buggy circles around the bunker and douses it with flame, killing 8 of the guardsmen inside. The survivors hold fast! The guard command squad behind the ork lines loses a couple of their number.

Turn 5

Imperial Guard: The survivors in the bunker man up to their best weapons and open fire on the buggy that wiped out their buddies. It explodes around them. The plasma gunner in the command squad kills one of the rokkit boyz but dies from an overheat. The junior officer kills another with his bolter. Another plasma gunner, in the building on the guard line, also falls victim to a misfire. The leman russ splatters a couple more boyz and sends their squad running for the hills.

Orks: Envious of his colleague's hellhound kill, the other ork slaver targets the leman russ with his lucky rokkit stick and fires away, destroying the battle cannon. Blast that stick! The falling back boyz mob up in time to wipe out the command squad with slugga fire.

Turn 6

Imperial Guard: The chimera fires on the rokkitboyz, killing one of them. The survivors take cover, pinned by the tank's indirect ordnance fire. Guard armor and infantry scramble to the center of the battlefield to try and overpopulate the objective area. Target freedom is granted and the hustling guardsmen drop a few scattered grots, wiping out one squad and sending the other skittering off of the battlefield.

Orks: The big mek and warboss take personal offense to the nearby leman russ demolisher, charging it with swinging powerclaws. Unfortunately for them, the siege tank was just moving too fast to hit.

The Imperial Guard win a crushing victory.

Podiatrician

Here's the drop-pod contingent from my Space Wolves army. Lately I've heard various rumors about plastic drop pod kits to be released in coordination with some kind of 40k variant based on extra large games. But I got impatient some time last year and built three based on tips found here. I would probably still buy a plastic pod kit, assuming they look like the ones on this Forge World page. The best thing about drop pods is that they won't ever be destroyed by scattering on terrain or other units. The second-best thing is how they create instant cover for the passengers and can change the firing lanes of the battlefield suddenly and significantly. Sure, they can be destroyed pretty easily but most folks are more concerned with the squads that just disembarked - in my case, a Wolf Guard terminators or Grey Hunters.

I recently bought some medium bases and switched all the bases out on my Space Wolf and Chaos terminators. I think it makes the models look larger and more imposing, even though the actual models of the new plastic terminators are still a bit larger.

Are You A Termagan or a Termagant?

From Dictionary.com:

Word of the Day for Wednesday, May 2, 2007

termagant \TUR-muh-guhnt\, noun:
1. A scolding, nagging, bad-tempered woman; a shrew.
2. Overbearing; shrewish; scolding.

Termagant comes from Middle English Termagaunt, alteration of Tervagant, from Old French.

Termagant was an imaginary Muslim deity represented in medieval morality plays as extremely violent and turbulent. By the sixteenth century, termagant was used for a boisterous, brawling, turbulent person of either sex, but eventually it came to refer only to women.

GW picked a strange name for the lowliest of the tyranid foot soldiers. In any case, I'll have 40 of these bad-tempered little women in my Hive Fleet Vivax army, though I guess they're just called "gaunts" nowadays. Like I mentioned before, all of mine come from the Macragge package, and though they were quite cheap, their sculpt is not as detailed or poseable as the regular gaunt boxed sets. Gaunt broods all have to have the same weapons and upgrades (conveniently I just wanted simple fleshborers), but when I first started playing 'Nids in 2nd edition you could have a few here or there with interesting weapon variants. You had to buy separate metal models for them; I still have two of the webgun gaunts lying around, and there was also some kind of speargun available. Come to think of it, the webgun used the mini-flame template, which newcomers to the game would probably never know existed. It was pretty ridiculous in all honesty, and I'm glad they changed all template weapons in 3rd edition to use the standard size. As well, both of those old gaunt guns are now obsolete, but other standard Nid guns like the devourer or spinefist are available.

My hive fleet's termagants will be the workers of the swarm: fast, numerous, a lil' stingy (S4 from their toxin sacs), but easy to kill. They're also extremely dependent on synapse creatures, which is one of the reasons why I'll be huddling them around the hive tyrant most of the time. I want them to create a massive bugball that will take a significant investment by my enemy to reduce their numbers below killing and/or scoring capacity. They should be able to play offensive as well as defensive roles at will. My zope will probably be hanging out with them too, firing off warp blasts and combining his psychic scream with the tyrant's to keep any enemies that come within 18" of them at -2 Ld. The termagants are initiative 4 but even if they encounter I5 or I6 opponents, the tyrant can ping his bonesword to give them catalyst and they can all still inflict damage before dying. And if anyone is crazy enough to assault the hive tyrant, they'll have to pass a leadership test, plus lose 1 attack each from his lash whip.

Karel's Folly

Princep Karel, governor of the resourceful but isolated planet of Tristan, inexplicably declared secession from the Imperium. In response, forces of the Imperial navy surrounded the system and prepared a blockade to starve out Karel’s rebels. The situation might have been locked in a standstill for years but for a mysterious warp rift that opened suddenly near the planet. For nearly a month, the surface of Tristan has been ravaged by powerful storms, its cities razed overnight by bands of mysterious raiders. Excepting the few disorganized holdouts of the local defense forces, the planet lies virtually unguarded, its vast spoils free for the taking. Arms, slaves, and ancient technologies await new masters. Imperial adepts detect strange signals emanating from the surface; blood is in the water and sharks from all corners of the galaxy are moving to converge…

The new terrain is almost done and the pairings have been decided. They are as follows:

Friday
4 PM: Imperial Guard (Bully) vs Orcs (Pat)
7 PM Chaos (Christina) vs Tau (Marcus)
10 PM: Necrons (Mack) vs Chaos (Eric)

Saturday
10 AM: Necrons (Mack) vs Orcs (Pat)
1 PM: Imperial Guard (Bully) vs Tau (Marcus)
4 PM: Chaos (Christina) vs Chaos (Eric)

Standard missions, gamma (infiltrate, deep strike, dusk & dawn, victory points).

The first day's battles will take place on the forested outskirts of Tristan's capitol city. On the second day, the carnage will move deeper into the wasted urban sprawl.