17 August 2010

First victory

In the second game my brand new Tyranids scored theier first victory against Renés Chaos Space Marines.
Mission was "Capture and Control" and pitched battle deployment. Table had some LOS blocking hills (sorry sand dunes) and ruines, a modular hill on one of the long table edges and a wood.
The two objectives were placed in diagonally opposite directions in a ruin. Classic setup for a draw ...

Hive Fleet Open Valley (1499 points)
1 Tyranid Prime @ 110 pts (Alpha Warrior; Boneswords (x2); Scything Talons; Regeneration; Toxin Sacs)
2 Hive Guards @ 100 pts
2 Hive Guards @ 100 pts
3 Tyranid Warriors @ 175 pts (Lash Whip & Bonesword; Deathspitter (x2); Toxin Sacs; Venom Cannon)
5 Tyranid Warriors @ 210 pts (Scything Talons; Deathspitter (x4); Toxin Sacs; Venom Cannon)
8 Genestealers @ 229 pts (Toxin Sacs) + 1 Broodlord
16 Hormagaunts (Toxin Sacs)
16 Termagant Brood @ 96 pts (Toxin Sacs)
4 Ripper Swarm Brood @ 76 pts (Spinefists; Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon Prime @ 275 pts (Regeneration; Toxin Sacs)


Chaos Space Marines (tried to remember correctly)
1 Daemon Prince
3x 8 Plague Marines w/ Rhino
3 Oblitorators
3 Terminators
1 Predator w/ Heavy Bolter sponsons

Chaos Space Marines started, one Rhino stayed on the objective and the rest rushed forward. The terminators stayed in reserve, so did the Trygon, the outflanking Genestealers and the Warriors with the boneswords and lash whips together with the Alpha Warrior.

In short:
The Hormagaunts wore down one squad of plague marines.
The trygon and the Genestealers took down the squad guarding their objective and captured it.
The whole rest kept the enemy away from the Tyranid objective where a brood of termagants camped together with two Hive Guards.
Very helpful were the Warriors with the Prime which counter-attacked the shocking terminators and some more marines.
The oblitoraters were surprised at how many wounds some ripper swarms with toxin sacs can deal and unluckily failed so many saves that two died in the initial attack.

At the end after five rounds the Chaos Space Marines were nearly wiped out and the tyranids captured both objectives.

Taking toxin sacs on all units payed in the end. The regeneration did no good - I could invest the 35 points in something more helpful like more ripper swarms ;-)

10 August 2010

1st game: draw vs Chaos Space Marines

Just a quick update
  • Played the mission "Schwarzer Kreuzzug" from "Kampfeinsätze"
  • It's like a killpoints mission with a few special rules - most important: destroyed non vehicle units are put in reserve
  • End result was 10:10
  • Highlight were the Hormagaunts, which killed the demon prince twice. The second time they inflicted 17 wounds. Outch!

09 August 2010

Painting the Tyranids BoW style

Thanks to Beasts of War for their great tutorial and paint scheme for tyranids. Liked it so much that I decided to paint the whole army like that. Here are the first pictures of some warriors ...

Assembly Status

Openvalley has given birth to:
- 1 Alpha Warrior (Tyranid Prime is the correct specification)
- 4 Hive Guards
- 16 Termagants
- 16 Hormagaunts
- 8 Warriors
- 8 Genestealers (plus the ones from Space Hulk ;-)
- 1 Trygon Prime

Roughly 1200 points without upgrades like toxin sacs etc.