300th post! Battle Report Mechanicon Game 3 BA vs Nids

After taking my licking from Brad in game two I found myself against his buddy Nick and his nidzilla list. There would be no mercy.

1850 Nids Hive Tyrant with warriors
squad of 3 warriors
HT with wings
several squads of genestealers
3 zoanthropes
2 Lichtors
a few carnifexs.

Deployment: Table Corners
Mission: Bases

I set my base about 20" away from the table edge to protect vs Genestealer outflank and placed my Lascanons and tanks to get ready to shoot! I reserved a Pred, squad and bike squad and had my dreads in pods. He deployed similarly, prepared to run the gauntlet of my guns to get to my base. He had some stealers in reserve. My plan? Shoot the crap out of him and fall back. Rinse and repeat. Prepare for the outflank. Shoot the crap out of them. Tank shock. Move around. Go fast. Contest his base. Hold mine. Win.

Shock and Awe in other words.

Turn 1:
Nick goes first and charges ahead. He does not have a lot of shots, but tries to use his Zoenthropes to do some damage. Thats about it!

On my turn I start working on the Zoanthropes. With all of my multi meltas and other shots it does not take much. Two go down and one is reduced to a single wound. I also lay some wounds on a carnifex and shoot up a stealer squad charging through cover. They go to ground.

Turn 2:
He charges again, another round of running into my gunfire. He brings in a squad of stealers, but they fail to get into assault near my base, leaving them high and dry.

On my turn I lay down more hurt. One of my preds turns to deal with the outflanking stealers while my tanks and bikes move to get good angles on the charging bugs. I deep strike a pod behind his base and the dread gets out and lays down some flame, burning one of the warriors. Corbs comes on in a rhino with some troops and heads for his base to claim it once the dreads have cleared it out. The shooting is vicious, but before that, I tank shocked the stealers with my rhino, and they failed their test. My rhino chased them off the table. I killed the squad of stealers that had gone to ground in the middle, but that was the end of my shooting gallery. The next turn would see bugs in the wire for sure.

Turn 3:
His falling back stealer squad continued to fall back due to my rhino and ran off the table. He deep striked his hive tyrant right next to my base. Sadly, it scattered onto troops and died. He also tried to bring another stealer squad onto the table near my base. A lichtor came on right on my base and would get into assault, but my boys would beat it off. Some warriors got into assault with a bike squad and would eventually win that one. And a Carnifex actually made it to my base. It killed a combat squad, but I had 3 there. He assaulted my first dread with his Hive Tyrant... bad choice. The dread killed off the warriors while forcing him to reroll any damage rolls and taking none himself.

On my turn, I tank shocked the other stealer squad with my rhino, and they failed leadership as well. :) Just no luck for poor nick. Corbulo got out of the rhino to deal with the last Zoanthrope and the rhino charged forward to claim his base. I forgot to bring in my Death Company, but my guns did their work for them. I killed off the Carnifex at my base. At this point, there was not much more to do.

Turn 4:
His stealers fell back some more and he brought on another lichtor, but it would not last the turn. That effectively ended the game. My other dread came down and flamed a squad of stealers to death that was trying to double back and protect his base. Meanwhile, the first dread was locked in combat with the HT on his base, dealing a couple wounds and taking no damage.

By the end of 4 the game was locked up. My second dread would be assaulting the HT on turn 5, this one was the Death Company dread. I was going to get troops onto his base and since the HT moved away from the objective I would claim it with no chance for him to contest. He had nothing left to try to contest my base

Turn 5:
The game played out. I killed his HT at his base and claimed both objectives. So it would end.

MVP of the game? My shooting. At least a dozen times guys came up to my army and gasped at the thought of Shooty Blood Angels. But the fire power is undeniable. Big bugs die to multi melta fire. Nids in general die to Bolter rounds. Picking and choosing the assaults that I wanted to enter was key. I sacrificed a combat squad at my base to his Carnifex knowing it would be left in the open. Meanwhile I used that speed bump to wrap up every thing else at my base and prepare for the incoming fex. The Hive Tyrant on his base was not prepared for the pods of death coming down. Those Venerable Furioso dreads ate him for lunch. Nick was a fun opponent and I hope he enjoyed playing me. He was a little shell shocked at the end of the game but I think that was the first time he faced 3 Baal Preds. :) Being able to fall back 6 and still fire all of the guns is huge.

That ended day one. I finished the day with 46 out of 60 battle points, and was a little behind but not far from where I wanted to be. I was hoping to have 48-50. At any rate, it lined me up for an epic game vs Tim and his Salamanders in game 4.

That one will be up tomorrow. Can any one say "Called rending explosion on a Land Raider?" Muahaha.

jawaballs