My Tyranids, Campaign 1, Warhammer 8th Edition and other bits...

Greetings, I do apologise about the lack of posts for anyone who is reading my site (all two of you), but I have recently been to London and my internet connection sucks at my parent's house. Photos are incapable of going up on a post with any certainty. This, needless to say, is rather frustrating.
I have managed to get a few things sorted out in the gaming portion of my life. Look at the post title to get an inkling of it.

Tyranids

I have managed to get all of these models built. Now this doesn't seem like a lot of work, does it? I had to do running repairs upon most of the Warriors, 2 Carnifices, a dozen or so Hormagaunts and build about 30 Genestealers. Most of them have paint on them in some way, shape or form, but I have not been enthused to paint such a mass of them. I think that it will end up being completed painting-wise when I am back in Korea.

Campaign 1

This was going to be a weekend of games between the forces of Tyranids against a combined the Imperial Guard and Tau. 8 games ranging from 600pts to 6000pts fighting for Apocalypse stratagems. It would have been cool if two of the other players hadn't pulled out due to last minutes schedule changes.

I am in the process of hand writing the missions so only a few of the pages are up on a different page. Bear with me and I will get through them all.

I proceeded to hack down the amount of battles played from 8 to 5. We managed to get 3 of them done, before apathy kicked in.

The first battle was between 600pts of Genestealers against 600pts of Guard Elites. Night fighting on a Cityfight-ish board. 10 Ymgarl Genestealers (two units of 5)10 Genestealers with Scything Talons and 10 Genestealers with Scything Talons with one upgraded to a Broodlord. I was up against 4 units of five Stormtroopers and a unit of 9 Ratlings. All of the Guard died for no losses.
In hindsight the night fighting should have only been there for the first turn. The Genestealer's number of attacks and their sheer ferocity made the Stormtroopers look like kindergarteners up against SAS troopers.

The second game had the Tyranids chasing a MAAAAAAAAAADDDDD scientist in order to stop his 'INKVEDIBLE VUNDER VEAPON OV DOOM' from being used upon the invasion forces. I could only use Troops choices (600pts again) and the Guard could use Troops, HQ and Elites. The Guard also had the MAAAAAAAADD Scientist too.
It wasn't that badly balanced, but the Guard player had 2 turns to move before my Nids even turned up, which was the problem. There was no urgency in the game. The Guard player just strolled along and set up heavy weapon teams and atomised swathes of my forces.
In hindsight the Nids should have all turned up on turn 2 or they should have been going first instead of second. Either way it would have been more urgent for the Guard.

The third game was just silly. 6 Carnifices, a Trygon Prime, a Tyrannofex and a Zoanthrope against 3 Baneblade chassis tanks, a Macharius chassis tank and a Chimera chassis Vulcan Mega Bolter. This was pure carnage. Massive amounts of firepower headed my way and I thought that I wouldn't even make it into combat. I lost 4 Carnifices before I did anything to the enemy.
I managed to rip the Guard tanks apart as soon as I contacted them though.

Photos were taken of this game, but not by me. As soon as I get them from my opponent I'll put them up.

Apart from that I've not done a lot since, gaming-wise. I've got the new 8th Edition book for Warhammer, I've been drooling over the new Pig-people faction for Hordes and I bought a box of Hoplites from Immortal Miniatures.

8th Edition

SHINY!!!!

*Ahem*

The 8th Edition book is immense. I mean the size of it is bordering upon obscene. This aside it is well produced. Hard-back cover, 528pp, full colour, index and reference charts.

This is not too much of a step-up from the 7th Edition Warhammer or even the 5th Edition 40K rulebooks. What it does do though is break down the sections into easy to understand chunks and shows examples of how it works with images and diagrams.

The phases are still the same as they were in 7th. Move, Magic, Shooting and Stabbing.

Movement has simplified for those who have issues with maths. Moving a unit left, right or backwards costs 2" for every 1" moved. Nice and simple. Wheeling is as it always has been.

There are a few changes here though.

You can reform if you have a musician (and pass a Ld test) for free during the remaining moves part of the phase. This means you can reform then move as normal apart from charging.

A unit that is able to shoot may still do so, but counts as moving (therefore has a -1 to hit).

Marching within 8" of an enemy is possible if a Ld test is passed. Dwarfs ignore this due to their own army rules.

So successfully march blocking is no longer a given.

Charging is now M+2d6". If you fail you move your basic value and the higher die rolled.

Cavalry roll 3D6 and discard the lower for charging, but they conform to the same failed charge rules.

So what we have here is a much more manoeuvrable battle line, with the new rules for reform and marching. We also have a much more chaotic advance with the random charge distance. For myself I'm happy at this. My Ogres will no longer be taunted by the 12" charge of old and especially with the possibility of an 18" charge. They will be more likely to get the Bull Charge and I can start to alter their facing to stop being hit in the flanks by faster units.

My Saurian warriors will have similar benefits. Massed ranks of Saurus charging.... hehehe...

I have yet to witness a Magic phase in 8th, so I can't really comment upon it from glancing at the rulebook.

Shooting has increased in accordance to the speedy movement of the hordes. Every unit can now fire in at least 2 ranks. This also happens as a charge reaction.

Now the shooting phase also introduces us to 2 major new things in 8th edition.

1) 6+ to wound anything, irrespective of strength and toughness.

2) Armour save then EITHER ward save OR regenerate.

Number one stops people being bogged down by units that they have no chance of killing due to mediocre strength and insane toughness. A David and Goliath rule if you will.

Number two stops insane critters like the Hydra for Dark Elves having 74 saves against each wound.

I'll finish off writing this in a second post. This is a lot to go on with for the moment.

Regards,

English Pillock