[Epic] Battle Report (or why I don't want to sit right now...)

From: Thane Morgan <thane_at_...>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 01:54:06 -0700

OK, I just got reamed. 3000 point tyrannid vs. squat, meeting engagement

Here's my bugs:
(X2) Assault (pods)
5 termies
5 genestealers
5 hormagants
2 tyrannid warriors
2 hive tyrants

Biovore (pods)
10 biovore
10 termies
3 HT's

Spawn Brood
9 assault spawn
2 TW's
2 HT's

Artillery x2
3 exocrine
3 dactylis
5 lictors
2 TW's
1 HT

Heirophant w/ claw and biocannon
dominatrix
harridan

Opponents Force (estimates)

Megacannon
7 megacannon

Bikes
12 bikes
10 trikes
psycker

Thunderers
16 thunderers in rhinos

Light artillery
14 artillery w/ commanders

3 overlords
cyclops
collosus


Set up of board.

Left side Center Right side
trees with ruins more trees with ruins canyons

a road ran longways through the 4x8 board, with two branches going to
each set up edge og the board

Squats set up:
Left side center right
mega cannon cyclops colossus
bikes overlords light artillery
                         thunderers

Bugs
Assault spawn artillery1 artillery 2
                        dominatrix
                        biotitan

Turn 1
Bugs march forward; biotitan moves right, dom moves left to avoid
cyclops
Thunderers move right in front of a cliff, artillery moves behind cliff.
overlords move over the bikes

Megacannon place 8 bm's on assault spawn.

Turn 2
Harridan and 1 assault brood turn up.

Harridan attacks l artillery, killing 3. Should have gone for Mega's,
but his thunderfire proxies scared me.

Assault brood drops on the far left flank, prepare to join with assault
spawn for attack on the bikes. Dom moves further left and forward to hit
the overlords. First artillery overwatchs, also for overlords. Second
artillery moves further forward with biotitan, who still stays out of
site from cyclops.

Bikes go on assault and wait, megacannon move towards right to avoid
assault brood. At least they didn't overwatch. Cyclops moves to get LOS
on Arty 2, thunderers deploy in a line in front of cliff with colossus.
Overlords move overtop of assault spawn.

Thunderers put a 3 BM's on biotitan, Megas put 8 BM's on Dominatrix
(destroying all firing by "official" rules) Dorsal cannon damaged by
overlords. 1 overlord take 3 hits from arty 1, but could not get any of
the HT or TW shots to get past the save for the kill. Arty 1
dactylis get 18 fp on densely packed biks, kill 5. Bikes put a few bm on
assault brood, spawn get bomb hits from overlords. light artillery
damages artillery 2; cyclops kills all synapse creatures from artillery
2. Bug's orbital barrage is turned against the assault spawn, killing 3.
Thunderers rack up 5 wounds on biotitan damaging claw.

Assault spawn and assault brood gang up on bikes; however, they have ~10
BM's by now, and get even die roll. I win by two, he plays counter
attack, beating me by 3. I play counter attack, still losing by 3. I
break bike, but am reduced to 2 spawn, 1 HT and 4 genestealers, 1
hormagant, 2 termies, 1 TW, 1 HT.

Biotitan moves to ff thunderers, loses but is in position to get in
backfield with more cover.

His victorious bikes chase down the spawn, killing them all like dogs. I
lose 17 moral due to BM on the Detat. Note the importance of house rule
limiting BM morale loss to the original morale value of the unit.

Overlords move forward to FF dom, scoring 1 more hit. Biotitan gets claw
and Dom gets DR back online, though she retains 5 bm's

Score is 17 to 53.

Turn 3

Bugs only get second assault brood; biovore stay in the air.

assault brood drops on left to join the remainder of the first brood,
move to attack megacannon. Dom moves forward to catch bikes in crossfire
if if they move to protect the megacannon (they do). Cyclops turns 135
to line up on dom, biotitan moves into the woods behind the biotitan.
megas again move away from assault broods, but is tempting to the
biotitan. thunderers move a bit to close to lictors in ruins, and lose
~4 of their number to snapfire. overlords move behind arty 1. light
artillery moves to bombard biotitan.

Arty 2 is left with 1 dactylis between the colossus and thunderers.
Biotitan takes a few more his from light artillery, dom gets pounded
again from the megacannon. Arty 1 kills 1 overlord, and further kills
some bikes. lose a few models to overlords; collosus kills dom (costing
17 more morale due to BM; her death would normally be worth 10).

This time the two assault broods crush the bikes and a few megacannon,
but the loss of the dom gives the broken units an escape. The biotitan
kills the cyclops, but is now at 12 wounds. I earn 15 morale from this,
but after the dust clears, The score is -31 to 33.


Notes
The assault broods did not have enough punch, though this is more due to
my lack of genestealers than anything else. with 20 more genestealers
I'l be able to do some damage.

I was badly hurt by the way my reinforcement came in peicemeal; the
biovore never hit the table, and they would have made a major
difference. Even if the two assault broods had come in totgether, I
could have racked up the score needed to win the CC in round 2, and
eliminated the bikes and left the megacannons vulnerable. However, not
podding in seemed a worse decision, as the squat FP would have ripped up
those broods well before they could have become a threat if set up
normally.

As it was, I was kept with a huge BM liability, costing me well over 50
morale over 2 turns.

I really should have used the harridan against the megacannon; it would
have shut down 2 on average rolls. I let him proxy thunderfires though
for megacannons, and this scared me off.

The two rules that will become hause rules here will be that:

A) no detat can lose more morale to BM's in a turn than their normal
morale. As has been discussed before here, it is stupid to think the
army will lose morale to a unit being pinned than by the same unit being
completely destroyed.

B) war engines should ignore BM when firing. Their are too many WE's
which don't have the option of using fp to sop up BM's, especially for
eldar and tyrannids. having by 490 point dom shut down by 5 BM's really
pissed me off.

Hopefully I can redeem myself this weekend, though I really need some
sprues to come in so I can get more TW's and genesteallers.

Thane
Received on Fri Mar 20 1998 - 08:54:06 UTC