Swarm-fall

The wind is dry as it blows over the face of the Desecrator. The massive beast gazed across the planet's surface, taking in and evaluating the course of action to take. This planet is full of small, forested areas, rich in biomass. As the sun begins to set, the tyrant reaches out through his synaptic influence to instruct the nearby ripper swarms to begin the initial consumption of material. As the small beasts began to tunnel and devour, the other digestion-beasts began their own grisly work, as the Hive Mind commands. 
Suddenly, through the synapse connecting the tyrant to the rest of the army, he sees through a hormagaunts eyes. Humanoids, blasting and burning away at the swarms of rippers just on the other side of the ridge. The Hive Mind commands for a local tervigon to begin advancing with its brood beginning to awake within it. As the alien forces start to destroy entire broods of hormagaunts, the tervigon unleashed its dormant brood of termigaunts and a carnifex begins to bombard the enemy with stranglethorn seeds from afar. 
The sun sets as the Desecrator opens his wings and takes flight, heading to the front of battle. As he swoops over the edge of the ridge, the tervigon is slain by the onslaught of fire from the enemy forces. The tyrant directs the hibernating mawlock to wake for the feast. The mawlock erupts from the ground, swallowing nearly two full squads at once. Living ammunition fills the night air as well as the shots from enemy weapons. The Hive Mind drops a spore from orbit onto the battlefield and out emerged a copy of the creature that has haunted the enemy race, the Doom of Malan'tai. The very souls of the enemy begin to be devoured as a brood of genestealers and their broodlord emerge from the darkness. The Desecrator gives the telepathic sygnal and another creature emerges from the night. A lictor, bent on hunting the psycher of the enemy forces, Deathleaper. As the forces collide, the enemy warlord, adorned in blazing armor, steps forward to challenge the Desecrator. The opponent enters into combat with the tyrant, as both exchange mighty blows. The tyrant can sense that the battle is over, the enemy forces are routed or dead, yet this one foe refused to relent. In one mighty blow, the fiery opponent brought his weapon down upon the tyrant's head. In that moment, the front line was dispersed, the synaptic link to the Hive Mind gone, but the Desecrator would be back, and this is far from over......

Eldar vs Tyranids 6th ed

OK so Jon and I managed to get a game in his Sunday (my first in months) and we are trying out some of the new rules of 6th ed. I only remembered at the start of the 1st game turn to take pictures so no preliminary setup pics. We set up a 1500 game and rolled up the Crusade scenario and the Hammer and Anvil Deployment. We had 3 objectives, one next to the snipers on the building, one by the tree on the hill, and the rocket pod next to the stones. We also decided to use the random terrain rules and a few of the artifacts. 
Jon brought the Firelord as his warlord and a Farseer. two 5-man units of Pathfinders, 5 Dire Avengers, 5 Darkreapers, 5 Wraithguard with Warlock, 10 Storm Guardians with Warlock, 5 Firedragons in Wave Serpant and 3 Shining Spears.
I brought a flying Hive Tyrant as my warlord to test out the Flying Monstrous Creatures rules, 1 Tervigon, 1 Mawlock, 1 Carnifex, Deathleaper, Doom in a spore, 9 Genestealers and a Broodlord, 2 Hive Guard. 10 Termigaunts, and 20 Hormagaunts. Jon won the roll and took first turn.

I held much of my army in reserve.

We did not roll a successful Nightfight so Jon started by dealing some heavy damage to my troops. First, his pathfinders discovered that the forest in which they hid was actually a large mass of mind controlling ferns.... yes, I said ferns. The objective he was deployed on top of gave him extra cover on his snipers. He decides to get his snipers out of the hazardous fauna and book it toward the river. His forces advanced slowly then opened fire on my Hormigaunts, killing about half the unit. His sniper had run out of the hazardous forest and right into a river.... too bad the river turned out to be a river of industrial sewage.

On my turn, we rolled and the sun set on the battlefield. The Terv birthed 10 gaunts and my forces advance straight toward the enemy. I discovered that the forest in front of my troops was full of dense and tough plant life that granted me excessive cover.

In the second turn, the Eldar advanced more. The wave serpent dropped the Firelord and his Dragons and proceeded to scorch the Tervigon and its posse of gaunts. Leaving only 1 gaunt and a single wound on the Tervigon, the Wraithguard failed to harm the Terv, but she was finished of by the snipers. The synaptic feedback killed the remaining gaunt. 

On my turn, the Mawlock and Tyrant arrived for some carnage. The Mawlock Devoured all but the Exarcs of Jon's Avengers and Reapers. Tyrant came swooping onto the battlefield. My guants and Fex opened fire on the Fire Dragons killing 3. Tyrant shot the last biker. Hormagaunts rushed the Wraithguard getting all but 1 gaunt killed. the first of the two artifacts ended up being just some dust.

Third turn, Jon jumped his remaining Dragons in the tank and maneuvered around. Guardians moved up to the front of the battle. His last Dire Avenger rushed forward to find out what the second artifact was, but only found dust. He failed to wound my Tyrant but he did manage to ground him. 
On my turn all but the Hive Guard came in. The Doom landed in the middle of everything to suck up their souls. Fex wiped out all but the very courageous Warlock and my Deathleaper killed one Pathfinder. Genstealers moved up the river of sludge. Tyrant joined the combat in which the gaunt survived one more round. My Tyrant accepted the challenge by the Warlock in the Wraithguard unit.... and ate him for dinner. Mawlock went to chew on the tank a bit, removing the bottom weapon.

Fourth turn, Jon managed to kill my Mawlock with a skillfully placed sniper round to the back of his head after the Dragons got its attention with some poorly aimed fireworks. During Jon's turn, the Doom sucked up a single snipers wound and caused them to flee the battlefield. 
On my turn, the Hive Guard finally came in but had to foot slog it across the battlefield and would never reach the battle. The Doom sucked up the last two Dragons' souls up and then went after the tank, wrecking it. Tyrant finished chewing on the wraithbone then advanced into a harmless forest. Genestealers discovered a refuge of shelter in their forest and a anti-grave objective. Lictor was confused.

On the 5th and final turn (ended due to time), the Firelord was heroically standing atop the objective, defiantly fending off the Hive Tyrant. My Doom assaulted the snipers, issued a challenge (as a special character) and instant-deathed the Farseer. That left me with 1 objective and we contested two.

I had 1 Primary Objective scoring me 3 victory points and Linebreaker scoring me 1 victory point. TOTAL=4

Jon had First Blood for 1 Victory Point and we had a roll off with his HQ vs mine and he would have won scoring him 1 victory point due to his warlord trait. TOTAL=2

Jon was a great opponant and it was a hard fought battle on both sides. There were pivotal and cinematic moments (stay tuned for my battle journal) as well as funny mishaps. I look forward to playing against Jon again soon. Stay tuned for more!

In the end, the Eldar had inflicted heavy casualties on the Tyranid invaders, and a Phoenix Lord felled a great Tyrant. But the battle was lost and the Eldar were forced to withdraw.... for now.

Back Into It

OK so after a long summer I have finally gotten back into Warhammer. The school year has just started and I will be posting more Bat Reps soon. The new 6th Edition rules are out so this will be an interesting time. I am considering adding a new section of posts about some of the rule changes for everyone to reference. Basically these would be on an as-we-discover-them basis so it should be fun. Keep posted and we will have more for you soon!