This is an awesome guest battle report brought to us by Adam from over at the Dice Abide!
This weekend, I invited my pal, Bugsculptor, over for a beer… or 6. We decided to give my scenario, The Hammering a shot. This scenario is basically played like The Scouring, but with a few small changes: Objectives are beer cans with numbers written on bottom in sharpie. You cannot look at the number on bottom until the beer is empty, and a controlling player may choose to drink the beer at any time, though once they start, they must finish the beer as quickly as possible.
Note: That’s Pete in the picture, drinking the beer, sadly only 1 Victory Point to chug a PBR isn’t exactly worth it.
Since Pete is a foreign git, who has never experienced the joy of chugging a PBR at high speed, I thought this would give me the advantage with my domestic swill, to make up for my army list kind of being a bit random, using some new things I wanted to try.
Chaos Lord: Mark of Nurgle, Burning Brand of Skalathrax, Chaos Bike, Lightning Claw
5 Plague Marines: 2 Plasma Guns
5 Plague Marines: 2 Plasma Guns
5 Plague Marines: 2 Plasma Guns
Heldrake: Baleflamer
4 Chaos Spawn: Mark of Nurgle
10 Chaos Bikers: 2 Meltaguns, Mark of Nurgle
Maulerfiend: Lasher Tendrils
Maulerfiend: Lasher Tendrils
Ork Warboss: Power Klaw, Shoota, Attack Squig, ‘eavy Armour
11 Ork Boyz: Nob with Power Klaw, in Trukk
10 Grots: 1 Runtherd
Pete on the other hand, took a list that he’s had a bit more practice with. While it lacks on scoring troops, it makes up for that in devastating firepower and combat troops:
The Swarmlord: 1 Tyrant Guard with Lash Whip
Tyranid Prime: Two Boneswords, Rending Claws, Regeneration
3 Zoanthropes: Spore Pod
3 Zoanthropes
Doom of Malan’tai: Spore Pod
Tervigon: Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
10 Termagants
10 Termagants
2 Biovores
Trygon: Toxin Sacs
Trygon: Toxin Sacs
Setup and Deployment
I have a bunch of terrain to recreate a ruined Imperial city, so we followed the normal rules of D3 pieces of terrain per section and came up with this lovely board:
You can see Pete’s hand deftly placing a secret objective in my deployment zone. This was the final piece of terrain on what will soon be a bloody, and burpy, battlefield.
I decided to take advantage of my speed and deploy in a refused flank fashion, knowing that if Pete puts too much resistance on that side, I can rapidly move my force to avoid, or intercept it. Seeing me deploy heavily on the flank meant that Pete’s slower Tyranids deployed to counter, as I had expected.
Turn 1
To begin the game, we both immediately chugged a beer that we controlled in our deployment zone (it was really damn hot that day). To Pete’s chagrin, his Beer was a lowly 1 (as you can see in the masthead pic), and mine was a 3! That’s the best PBR I’ve ever had!
My turn was mostly uneventful, since my list lacks much at all to do with long-range shooting. I pretty much just redeployed my orks to the left side to take on his termagants, while the rest of my army slowly moved into position to counter Pete’s advance. On the Tyranid turn, he started by rolling a Perils on his Swarmlord, then a lucky 1, 2 & 2 for his Tervigon spawning, meaning that I wont have to worry about tons of termagants clogging up my tires, and that Pete is now dangerously low on scoring units. His Zoanthropes passed all their psychic tests, got 2 hits with their Warp Lance, I failed both Deny the Witch rolls, as well as my Invulnerable saves, and that’s how my Maulerfiend got immobilized on turn 1… Sigh.
Turn 2
Both of us were still a bit parched, and we were both still controlling the objectives in our own deployment zones, so we each drank another. This revealed a second 1 point objective in Pete’s deployment zone, and a second 3 point objective in mine! At first I rejoiced, though I should have realized this meant the nids would be charging down my throat faster than that beer.
My reserves roll was perfect, my Helldrake came on, while my Grots stayed off. The Helldrake vector striked the Swarmlord’s unit to cause a wound, then torched them for a couple more. My orks ran out and unsurprisingly slaughtered the Termagants. My Chaos Spawn tied up the Trygon on my right flank and did a couple wounds, while my second Maulerfiend charged into Pete’s unit of Zoanthropes, killing one. On Pete’s turn, all of his reserves came in, except the Termagants, the Doom landed in the middle of my Plague Marines, killing 6 of them, while also causing a wound to my bikers who had pulled back to avoid the Swarmlord, who had dealt another wound to himself through Perils of the Warp.
Turn 3
This turn my Bikes finished off the Swarmlord with a Meltagun shot, while the rest of my army was trying to recover from a devastating Doom of Malan’tai mental shockwave. Meanwhile my Orks struggled to handle the Tervigon, and the Warboss ditched them to go beat up some annoying Biovores. On Pete’s turn, the Doom finished off a Plague Marine squad, while his Trygon escaped the clutches of my Chaos Spawn, finishing off the last one, while surviving with a single wound.
Turn 4
Since we both knew that the center objectives were worth 2 points each, we weren’t in any rush to drink them on Turn 3, but by Turn 4, the heat had gotten to us and we finished off the last two, slightly warm and gassy, beers. They weren’t as good as the first few, and definitely a bit warmer, but it helped fight the summer heat.
Things were turning around for the Tyranids, though it may not have seemed that way at first. I vector striked with the Helldrake, causing 3 wounds to his otherwise unwounded Trygon, and the Trygon that survived the onslaught of the Chaos Spawn met a timely end to a plasma gun shot fired from a squad of 2 Plague Marines. The Warboss easily dispatched the pesky Biovores, but then found himself out in the open, without much to punch, so he was sad. The Doom of Malan’tai, not content with the death it has caused so far charged into my Chaos Bikers, which I honestly did not expect. Pinning them down and killing more of them every turn with his psychic shenanigans. Pardon the blurry picture, clearly the PBR has gotten to the camera.
Turn 5
What turned out to be the final turn of the game, was a short and sad one for my Chaos. In a race to push him off the objective, my sole surviving Plague Marine ran towards my backfield objective, worth 3 points. The Maulerfiend charged into intercept the Tervigon, hoping for Turn 6 to see the Warboss come and finish it off. My Ork Trukk also booked it towards the gaunts, just doing anything it could to help, before getting eaten by the Trygon. The Tyranid Prime, annoyed at the loss of the Swarmlord, decided to take a bit of revenge, charging into my Bikes, stepping into the challenge for the Doom and poking my lord and popping his head. Pete’s Zoanthropes charged in and slaughtered the Grots, killing 5 and chasing them off the board. In the end, Pete had a 3 point objective and a 2 point objective, while I only had a 1 point objective.
Conclusion
Everything started off going my way! Both 3 point objectives were in my deployment zone, while the 2’s were in the middle and Pete was stuck with both 1 point objectives. In retrospect, that’s actually not terrible for Pete, since he really doesn’t like it when he has to sit back and defend, he’d much rather force all his Tyranids down my throat.
The Scenario was definitely a success too! It actually IMPROVED the game with the beers. Instead of knowing how many points all the objectives were up front, we were forced to explore and find out how much each was worth, which made the game much more dynamic than a normal match of The Scouring. If you really want to improve this scenario, then I would suggest playing with the values hidden, and letting the numbers be revealed as they’re captured.
The Orks were really an amazing addition to my Chaos Marine army, and when combined with Maulerfiends, meant that I had an absurdly fast army, I really can’t wait to add a second unit of Trukk Boyz! The Chaos Spawn also worked out well, but I’m not 100% sold on the bikers. This match was rough for the bikers though, since most of the damage they took was to the Doom, which totally bypassed their T6. I’m willing to give them another shot, but it’s hard to compete with Spawn and Helldrakes.