Last Sunday saw me granted a day pass to travel down to Nottingham to Warhammer World to meet up with Matt (he of the Mottblog) for a game and a catchup. For this trip we agreed to play Warhammer 40K second edition - his Ultramarines vs my Tyranids (you know, that army that I said I would never build). This would be my first proper attempt at the system, and Matt's first against Tyranids, so it was a learning experience for both of us.
not one of Matt's. Definitely an imposing chap though
The game saw Matt's marines on a mission to assassinate my Hive Tyrant, with the hope of throwing the invading Tyranid forces into disarray. Little did they know that it was actually a trap, as the Techmarine's scanner revealed bio signals all around him.
The mission cards drawn were, as you might have guessed, Assassination and Trap. Tyranids have a fun pre-battle stage in second edition where you roll to see whether the opposing forces have been impacted by the Tyranid invasion. On the whole my rolls for this were sub par, with the notable exception of rolling 'Jones is acting strangely' for the Terminators (insert evil laugh here). 'Trap' also meant I had to roll to see which units deployed in my zone, and which would deploy from the flanks - this went well for me, with two genestealer broods and a termagant brood on the flanks, and the rest deploying as normal - including my Hive Tyrant, who was able to start nicely safe from being shot at, with his three Tyranid Warrior Guards.
The opening turns saw mixed results for both of us. Jones did indeed act strangely, in the very first turn, exploding within his own armour as the barbed strangler seed he was carrying germinated (fortunately for Matt it didn't spread to any other marines due to his careful deployment). In revenge, his two assault cannons (one with the terminators, the other on his dreadnought), tore apart my deathspitter armed Warrior Brood and most of a termagant broad. Those things are nasty, but luckily for me, both jammed early and played little more of a role in the game.
My lictor had deployed with a genestealer brood, and discovered a rather nasty trick (which it would use several times more), of using it's flesh hooks to grab marines and drag them into its accompanying genestealers - with the added advantage of locking their unit in combat so they couldn't shoot (a bit gamey, but we were exploring what you could do within the rules).
When Matt's marines got to shoot, they were very effective, and I lost all the termagants, and more than half the warriors. I was lucky to manage to fix a lot of his strength in hand to hand for much of the game, limiting his ability to shoot up my bugs.
A 'reinforcements' strategy card allowed the marines to bring back on the Devastator squad that had been wiped out by the genestealers, But the last minute intervention of the Tyrant himself sealed the end of the game by wiping out the marine assault squad. Just about a win to me, 7 VPs to 5 (mostly because my squads were very low costs and so didn't score much).
So, verdict and thoughts on second edition and the armies that were in play.
- It was great fun! Not weighed down with lots of special rules, and the ones that were there added to the story
- Terminators are tough (as they should be)
- Assault cannons are nasty against anything in the open (I was lucky they jammed and then got stuck in combat)
- the various 'gaunts ('gants?) are weak, but their cost reflects that - I shouldn't expect them to last long
- genestealers and warriors with boneswords are really nasty in combat
- the psychic phase has a nice back and forth, but wasn't really decisive - I see that as a positive, it felt like it was more about trying to get an edge over the opponent rather than a game winner on its own
- My 'nids have a problem with armour. I was lucky that the dreadnought ended up in hand to hand with genestealers, as they usually won the combat, which stopped the dreadnought hunting the rest of my force, but they were completely unable to damage it.
Great fun with a great opponent, and a great venue, would definitely recommend!
