Double Trouble game 3 - Tyranids and Orks vs Astra Militarum and Chaos Marines

Hello!

This is a battle report from Double Trouble 3 - a 40k doubles tournament with randomised partners every round. Each player has 875 points, making 1750 points a side in total. The missions are all the same, scoring is based on holding objectives at the end of every turn and on the points costs of all the units your side killed at the end of the game. These are scored separately to give totals in Victory Points and Blood Points respectively. For more information, go here.

For the final game my Tyranids (Hive Tyrant, Malanthrope, Termagants, 2 Ripper broods, 2 Tyrannofexes) were teamed up with Ian’s fantastic Mad Max themed Orks, including a Warboss on a bike, boyz in a trukk, a deff rolla battlewagon, 5 rokkit buggies and 5 skorcha trakks. Ian’s army is so full of conversions and kit bashes he entered the entire thing in the conversion competition and scared off anyone else from entering! His battlewagon actually plays music as well so this game was accompanied by a soundtrack.

Our opponents were Greg with some possibly renegade Astra Militarum (Company commander, Psyker, 3 infantry squads, Leman Russ, 2 basilisks, a big unit of Bullgryns and an ogryn bodyguard with a relic for a 2+ invulnerable save) and James with some possibly loyalist Alpha Legion (Daemon Prince, Jump Pack Lord, 3 unit’s of cultists, a small unit of Berserkers and 2 unit’s of Oblitorators.) That’s a lot of bodies, a lot of guns, and a lot of command points! I thought we were definitely up against it in this game, outnumbered and outgunned, and with the corner deployment most of their heavy guns were tucked safely away from us.

Deployment prior to the Berserkers being placed. Oblitorators off the board in the warp somewhere and basilisks right back in the far corner. We made a wedge with the nids as a central blob and Ork mobile units on either flank. The Rokkit buggies were off the board ready to ‘outflank’.

Our turn first and I didn’t have much to do, other than shuffle around and kill a few guardsmen. Acid Sprays we’re out of range and line of sight to the best targets. Ian retroactively scorched some Berserkers after James forgot to place them as forward operatives and they appeared mid turn instead. Ian’s Warboss and boyz charged ahead to fight the biggest, toughest things they could find. The boyz surrounded the invincible Ogryn Bodyguard, using objective secured to grab an objective, but didn’t little else. The Warboss however zoomed head first into the Bullgryns and decapitated two of them (Ian rolled three 6s to wound with the chapter approved relic, then did something like 8 mortal wounds) before getting beaten into the sand by the remainders. Epic! Thanks to backfield rippers and aggressive Orks we got 4 objectives this turn.

Retaliatory fire was relatively acceptable, Ian losing a few wounds off his trukk and battlewagon. On our flank the Prince and Berserkers charged the Skorchas, killing all but one. Bullgryns moves up and charged into my Termagants, who were not properly screening as they had to move out of the way of the Warboss. Pile in caught one of the Tyrannofexes in melee. This was a real problem. Elsewhere the   Ogryn and some cultists failed to dislodge the Boyz and take the objective.

 

   

In our turn the Battlewagon moved up to charge in and cause mayhem. Rokkit buggies appeared to shoot the Russ, but were relatively ineffective. I disengaged from the Bullgryns and targeted them with a stationary Tyrannofex, only succeeding in melting one that was already injured. The Tyrant and the Malanthrope moved in to charge, but both whiffed and didn’t kill any of them! This was real bad! We still scored 4 objectives this turn though thanks to the boyz refusing to die. 

  

Missed a turn with the photos here. James brought the Oblitorators down on our flanks, had some good rolls to kill 4 out of 5 Rokkit buggies with them, and put some wounds on one of the Tyrannofexes. Combined with a barrage from the basilisks the Fex was down to 1 wound. Other shooting dropped Ian to just a damaged trukk on an objective, the last remaining boyz finally squashed by the Ogryn. James tried to Warp time the Prince over to help the Bullgryns but I denied with a double 6, forcing him to only kill some Termagants. This allowed the Hive Tyrant to counter attack and kill the Bullgryns before they could strike and finish off the Malanthrope.

In our turn we found that James had made a bit of an error as the Oblitorators were just within 18 inches of the stationary Tyrannofex on 1 wound. They melted. The other Tyrannofex cleared some guardsmen or cultists and thanks to an 11 super smite, the Tyrant beat up the Daemon Prince.

 

Artillery fire finally killed off the wounded Tyrannofex, while the second Oblitorators unit with the Lord next to them moved into position to kill the second fex. However James’ dice absolutely abandoned him and left it on a couple of wounds remaining. The Ogryn charged and killed the Malanthrope. 

The last couple of turns are a bit of a blur. The Tyrannofex manages to melt all but one Oblitorators, Ian’s surviving trukk put 3 Wounds on the lord with a Rokkit to the face. The wounded Tyrannofexes took an entire shooting phase of big guns but thanks to the Jormungandr adaptation refused to die, even to the Ogryn in melee.

The Tyrannofex did eventually fall in the last turn as James and Greg were running for objectives and killing off Ripper Swarms to take them. The Tyrant killed off cultists and the psyker in our last turn, ending on an objective. Ian and I finished with one model remaining each but we had done some good damage and racked up a fair few points along the way. 16 victory points and 917 blood points for us, 17 and 1523 for them. A bit of a battering but a fun game and a good example of how tough those Tyranids can be, even though the Tyrannofexes fell eventually, they took an awful lot of firepower.

My scorecard and final results! 11 out of 31 in the combined scores, not bad! Just pipped to the top 10 by Greg, probably the difference in killing that last Oblitorator or another guard squad. I climb a few more places if you only consider Blood Points, which was my original goal with building this list - just kill stuff!

I’ll repeat what I’ve said before, I had a great time. All the games were a lot of fun and all my partners and opponents were good eggs, as far as I can tell. The event was very well run and if there were another one, say on September the 1st, I would definitely try to get to it!

Double Trouble game 2 - Tyranids and Death Guard vs Harlequins and Daemons

Hello!

This is a battle report from Double Trouble 3 - a 40k doubles tournament with randomised partners every round. Each player has 875 points, making 1750 points a side in total. The missions are all the same, scoring is based on holding objectives at the end of every turn and on the points costs of all the units your side killed at the end of the game. These are scored separately to give totals in Victory Points and Blood Points respectively. For more information, go here.

In round 2 the Tyranids (Hive Tyrant, Malanthrope, Termagants, 2 lots of Ripper Swarms, 2 Tyrannofexes) were assigned Duncan's Death Guard, made up of Typhus, a unit of Plague Marines with blight launchers and assorted melee weapons, a Blight-Hauler, a Bloat-Drone with the fleshmower and a sizable unit of chaos spawn. Team bio-hazard then!

On the other side of the table Ian's Harlequins (2 Troupe Masters, A Solitaire, 3 Troupes and 3 Starweavers) teamed up with Luke's Khorne Daemons (Karanak and Skarbrand leading multiple Flesh Hound packs, Furies and Bloodcrushers.) Both rather striking looking forces, with a fast moving melee focus. Duncan and I definitely wanted them to come to us. In a rare event for 8th edition, Ian and Luke won the roll off and elected to go second.

Deployment was largely based around covering objectives with a solid Tyranid block in the centre and speedier Death Guard elements on the flanks. It's an odd day when Nurgle is the fast part of the army.

Our first turn involved a little shuffling and some odd shooting with what little guns were in range. Moving swiftly on...

The Bloat-Drone proved a tempting target for some hounds and Harlequins along with their Troupe Master.

Luke moved his blob of fast moving assault daemons up the centre, wisely keeping them 18 inches from my closest Tyrannofex.

Flesh Hounds and the Harlequin Troupe make it into the Bloat-drone, but the Troupe Master fails to get in. Even with his rerolls to wound the Bloat-drone survives more or less intact.

On the left flank more Hounds charged into the Blight-hauler. Another Harlequin troupe tried to charge in first but even ignoring the terrain with their flip-belts they couldn't make the distance. Ian's dice were not giving him much help at this stage!

Our turn was successful in terms of killing things, but we didn't move much. I shuffled forwards to get the Acid Sprays in range, and melted some daemons, including all the Bloodcrushers. I also had the Rippers dig up behind our lines to deny Skarbrand a nice landing spot and hold an objective. On the left flank not much happened, while on the right Typhus materialised, destroying the Troupe with psychic powers before failing to charge the Master. The Bloat-Drone and charging Spawn made short work of the Hounds.

       

Luke's remaining central force closed onto the Termagant screen, looking to take out objective secured units and tie up my monsters via pile in.

The left flank was turning into a slapfest with the Hounds and Blight-Hauler unable to do much to each other, and the Plague Marines and Harlequins getting stuck in with each other as well.

Ian's Solitaire came from nowhere with a Blitz move through terrain to get a charge off on my warlord Malanthrope, causing enough wounds to kill it off and pile in to the Tyrant and a Tyrannofex to try and stop them shooting. The Termagant screen held firm however, keeping the Furies and Karanak from piling in to my monsters. 

 

On the right flank Skarbrand appeared and took the fight to the Chaos Spawn,who I think managed to put 6 wounds on him after interrupting. You don’t see Spawn that much but they are pretty strong! He murderated his way through them, leaving one badly wounded survivor. 

In our turn a successful Smite from the Hive Tyrant killed off the Solitaire, leaving both the stationary Acid fexes to fire at full effect. Karanak and the Furies were turned into daemon-goo. The Termagants moved up towards an objective and a unit of Harlequins that were still embarked on their transport.

Duncan combined some psychic powers and stratagems to deadly effect, allowing Typhus, the Bloat-Drone and the last remaining spawn to kill off Skarband. First time I've seen the chaos familiar stratagem used in a game. I should remember it exists in future!

With time ticking, Ian focused on claiming objectives. One of his remaining Star Weavers moved up to shoot, then charge the Ripper swarms (who, lets remember, are toughness 3 with a 6+ save and leadership 4) but his dice betrayed him again and they all survived. The Starweaver would promptly be killed by Duncan's forces in the next turn. Elsewhere the other Starweavers did minimal damage to the Hive Tyrant.

My forces moved up, melting a Starweaver and most of it's occupants. I tried to advance Termagants onto an objective but they didn't run fast enough. The melee on the left flank eventually ended with a couple of hounds and some Harlies left hiding from the Tyrannofexes. On the right the Bloat-Drone chased down the Troupe Master that had run away from Typhus and aimed to find out 'will it blend?'. Apparently yes.

With about 5 minutes left at the end of turn 4 we decided to 'play' a further turn with the agreement that no one moves or shoots anything, so that we'd each get a bonus 3 victory points, and the game ended there. Luke and Ian were definitely up against it in this game but Ian played especially cautiously, which paid off as the Harlequins still had a number of assets left to hold objectives after initially looking like a tabling might have been on the cards. This paid off for them, just pipping us at 16 victory points to 15. Not so much with the blood points however, as Duncan and I picked up 1398 to their 742.

Another fun game, played in great spirit. This Tyranid force was proving very tough still, even though the Malanthrope spore cloud and the Jormungandr adaptation provided very little assistance in this one. I was also noticing that I was fairly command point independent - Duncan used the vast majority of ours in this game to good effect while my Tyrannofexes just melted everything they could get close to without having to use any stratagems on them.

Double Trouble game 1 - Tyranids and Space Marines vs Chaos Marines and Space Marines

Hello!

This is a battle report from Double Trouble 3 - a 40k doubles tournament with randomised partners every round. Each player has 875 points, making 1750 points a side in total. The missions are all the same, scoring is based on holding objectives at the end of every turn and on the points costs of all the units your side killed at the end of the game. These are scored separately to give totals in Victory Points and Blood Points respectively. For more information, go here.

In the first game of the day, my Tyranids (Hive Tyrant, Malanthrope, 2x3 Ripper swarms, 17 Termagants and 2 Acid Spray Tyrannofexes) were joined by Christopher's Blood Ravens, using Imperial Fist chapter tactics, consisting of Gabriel Angelos, a jump pack Librarian, Vanguard Veterans with a mix of claws and hammers/shields, a Venerable Dreadnought with lascannon and a Redemptor Dreadnought with plasma.

On the other side of the table were Mark with World Eaters made up of Kharn, an Exalted Champion, 3 squads of Berserkers and 2 Rhinos, and David with a silver and yellow custom Chapter of Space Marines using the Crimson Fist rules, who took Primaris Captain and Lieutenant, 2 units of Intercessors, 1 Tactical Squad, 1 Hellblaster squad, 1 Sternguard squad and a Venerable Dread with all the autocannons. So my Jormungandr adaptation didn't have much of an effect this game.

We were next to a window on a lovely sunny day, so sadly most of the pictures ended up quite dark. Sorry!

After deployment. Vanguard, Librarian and Ripper Swarms were off the board. I think Mark and David got first turn, but fair warning, I'm writing this at 4 in the morning so there is a fair chance I've gotten a bunch of stuff wrong...

The Rhinos and Zerkers advanced up the board to claim the central objectives, while the marines moved into positions and plinked off some wounds here and there. In our turn the Termagants spread out to do screening stuff, while fire from the lascannon dread and the Hive Tyrant's Miasma Cannon popped one of the Rhinos. The World Eaters inside were promptly melted by one of the Tyrannofexes, leaving only the Exalted Champion.

The Redemptor followed up by gutting the footslogging Berserkers, and the other Tyrannofex melted 9 wounds off the Rhino, leaving me ruing the fact that I had split off the fire from the stinger salvo to the Berserkers. In other news the two Ripper Swarm broods tunnelled up in our deployment zone on the two objectives, sitting behind walls to score them and be ignored all game. It was a decent start in terms of killing stuff but we were still under pressure from Kharn and chums, who were about to hit our lines.

Predictably, Kharn and the remaining Berserkers charged and killed all the Termagants. They also declared a charge on the Hive Tyrant and thanks to fighting twice/use of the Fury of Khorne Stratagem made it into melee with him. On other parts of the board shooting had been largely ineffectual, though David's Space Marines had moved up to claim the middle objectives as well as his backfield ones. David's dice were poor all game, even though they were the totally-not-weighted Tabletop Tactics dice. Amusingly Mark's remaining rhino fixed itself back to 2 wounds, though not quite as amusing as his Champion charging the Redemptor dread and getting plasma'd to death on overwatch.

Kharn dropped the Tyrant to a couple of wounds and the Berserkers finished him off. They then piled into the Tyrannofexes to stop me melting them.

In our turn I reversed my remaining nids out of combat and had a nice sit down while Christopher did some stuff. The Vanguard and Librarian turned up on the edge of the board near the enemy deployment zone and in range to strike out at several units. The Venerable Dreadnought moved up to assist his now quite poorly Redemptor brother. Gabriel Angelos marched over to smash some heretics, though predictably Kharn Heroically Intervened. 

Gabriel killed off the Berserkers, but was splattered by Kharn, who took some mortal wounds for his efforts. Elsewhere the Vanguard and the Librarian failed their charges.

David's Marines poured fire into the beleaguered Vanguard on their turn while Kharn continued his rampage, charging and killing both of our dreadnoughts thanks to stat increases from his warlord trait (having killed Angelos) and Veterans of the Long War.

Christopher was rolling like the numbers 1 and 2 did not exist, and only a single Vanguard Veteran fell from the storm of bolter shots and plasma fire.

In our turn the Vanguard and the Librarian split to hunt the enemy leaders. The Librarian decided he could totally take Kharn, after smiting him and trying to kill him with a krak grenade to the face, while the Vanguard jetted off to threaten the Captain and Lieutenant. My Tyrannofexes started a slow march up the board, melting any Primaris marines that got to close, and finishing off the last two Berserkers with a Stinger Salvo. 

The Vanguard killed the captain and scored us a bonus objective, and in the main event the Librarian gave Kharn a good bop on the head with his staff, killing him with a command reroll on the damage!

The last couple of turns involved David's marines charging into a grinding melee with the Vanguard Veterans, who eventually went down to the Lieutenant and the Venerable Dread's kicks. Mark's last Rhino finally died to overwatch trying to tie up a Tyrannofex, who did their job of removing a good chunk of the Primaris marines in the mid field. The game ended with the Librarian fighting the Lieutenant, I think killing him and surviving the game on one wound. Maybe. I didn't get any pictures of the very end, as would be a theme of the day the last few turns were pretty rushed, but we did manage to finish turn 6 and satisfyingly the game would have ended there event if we hadn't run out of time.

At the end, thanks to their aggressive start and mid game table presence Mark and David picked up 24 victory points to our 14, though, for pretty much the same reasons, Christopher and I came out ahead on blood points at 1497 to 1210. I was pleased with how the Tyranids performed, the Tyrannofexes were proving deadly and hard to shift under the cover of the Malanthrope's spore cloud. I think between them they took 5 wounds all game.

That was a really fun game full of epic moments, a great way to kick off the day. I think between us we had pretty much the spectrum from casual to competitive players and, as far as I could tell, we all had a great time.

Double Trouble 3 Thoughts and stuff

Hello!

Yesterday I attended Double Trouble 3, a 40k randomised doubles event run by Alex Brown of the From The Fang blog and hosted by Element Games in Stockport. I had a great time, it was very much a ‘beer and pretzels’ event (except that I was driving - taking the scenic M62 over the Pennines was a nice bonus) with a wide array of thematic armies and people playing in the spirit of fun rather than cutthroat competition.

I took Tyranids, as covered here. I was pleased with their performance overall, they proved a pretty tough nut to crack and it was pretty scary when both Tyrannofexes got to double fire their Acid Sprays. I’ll not run down all my games here, instead I’ll make separate posts for each battle report to follow soon. However, I can reveal one of my Tyrannofexes did me proud in the painting competition. I ‘won’ the monster/vehicle category via having the second most votes after the reveal that the most votes went to a model that wasn’t painted by the player who entered it. I didn’t really have hopes of winning anything so I’m pretty happy with that and the £10 voucher that came with it.

During the event I got to catch up a bit with Dave Weston, who runs the Confessions of a 40K Addict blog. Dave and I first met many years ago when we attended a doubles tournament at Warhammer World, after my initial partner dropped out and I asked for a replacement on a Tyranid forum. We promptly came second and were nominated for the best army award (you’ll see why if you click the link and look at his stuff). With that in mind I was secretly hoping I’d get teamed up with his rather beautiful, best army winning Genestealer Cult, it would have seemed quite appropriate, but sadly wasn’t to be. (Photo below shamelessly stolen from Dave’s blog.)

Overall I really enjoyed the day, the event was smoothly run, the venue was excellent and everyone I spoke to or played with were on top form. Sadly this may have been the last such event due to Alex selfishly deciding his family is more important than slaving away at organising events for strangers, however he is running one more as yet undecided event, which I think will be on the 1st of September. Hopefully I’ll be there!

Double Trouble Preview

Hello!

In one week I will be attending Double Trouble, a 40k doubles tournament held at Element Games, run by Alex Brown of the From The Fang blog. Except it’s no ordinary doubles tournament, because your partner is randomly chosen. But you don’t get stuck with them, because in each game your partner is randomised again! Details here.

This is the third version of the event (I think), I went to the one two years ago, taking my Adeptus Mechanicus force that, at the time, was 750 points with literally everything, so it was a good fit. After dealing out two tablings (one of which was over the total number of Victory points of their starting army thanks to a summoned Bloodthirster) and being involved in a bloodbath of a loss I got to go home with a trophy. I had a great time.

This year I’m taking my Tyranids, and looking to similarly kill lots of stuff and more or less ignore objectives. I decided I’d take a small force that would work well as a block of melty death on it’s own, largely independent of whatever my partners are bringing. So it’s these guys:

They are a Battalion using Hive Fleet Jormungandr, and the list is something like this:

HQ:
Hive Tyrant, Claws, Adrenal glands, the Miasma Cannon. His psychic powers are The Horror and Catalyst
Malanthrope - Warlord with the Insidious Threat trait

Troops:
2 broods of 3 Ripper Swarms
17 Termagants

Heavy Support:
2 Tyrannofexes with Acid Spray


So the plan is everything bunches up into a bubble of -1 to hit, ignore cover and synapse except the Rippers who go off and do a token effort at claiming objectives or just get in the way of stuff. With Jormungandr these guys should be fairly tough and hopefully they can park up on turn 1 or 2 and start melting things. It’s probably (read: definitely) not the most optimised list, but it should be fun!

This is the first tournament I’ve been to since starting the blog, so hopefully I can take lots of pictures that don’t suck and post a nice report for you all to read. I’m definitely looking forward to it!