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The low down:
- Emperor's relic - Unit Points for killed units, half points for half killed units which then translates to VPs - Hammer and Anvil
- Warlord Trait - Night Fighting turn 1
- Night fighting first turn, lost deployment, went second and failed to steal the initiative.
I put three units of Genestealers in this ruin, but high up so it would be difficult to assault them but they would have options to take out the Rangers or go after the Titan, another brood was on the ground floor underneath the Rangers.
There were also some Rustalkers [or Infiltrators] behind the ruins so there were definitely options/threats.
While the remaining two Broods hid in the other
Ian moved the Knight round the ruins. Lots of shooting poured into the Stealers, reducing one brood to 1 which promptly broke and fled right in front of the Knight.
The rest of the Rangers were equally effective killing a Brrod in the opposing ruins for First Strike
Through careful manoeuvres I managed to get shooting on quite a variety of models but that may have been too many targets as I couldn't outright kill the Rangers, if only I'd cast Onslaught on one of the Carnifex or Tfex, but it was too late by then.
I sent the Tfex into the far ruins to take out some more Ruststalkers, unfortunately the Fleshborers weren't too effective and the assault less so. We remained locked in combat and the Tyranid took a wound.
One of the carnifex had been wounded, probably by the Dunecrawler. The Knight couldn't get round the fleeing Genestealer without losing half it's move in a detour so it stayed put and melta'd the Stealer into slag.
It then targeted the wounded carnifex who was just out of the shrouded cloud from the Venomthrope
And vaporised it. The remaining Carnifex was assaulted by the strider things [S8 on the charge!] I think it took a couple of turns for me to take one of them out while the Flyrant seems to have taken a couple of wounds, he may have fallen out of the sky thanks to shooting from the remaining Rangers and lots of Heavy Stubber fire from the Dunecrawlers.
I'd moved the brood of Stealers underneath the Rangers to the other side of the wall but they were hunted down by the Ruststalkers. So let see what happens when the five of the 40k universe's premier cloase combat troops get into assault with the new robots on the block - well wiped out by the looks of it. All five dead, I think the Ruststalker have multiple wounds by the looks of it so I did 5 wounds and took 5 in return!
The Tyrannofex had been locked in combat for about 2 turns so I sent some spawned Gaunts [once again spawning out on double figures] to break the combat. It made not as much difference as I'd hoped and the Tfex took another wound.
The Tervigon also added it's weight to the combat with the Strider but again to little effect.
The Flyrant swooped off and headed for the Ruststalkers and to add synapse to the newly arrived tunnelling Rippers in the ruins. The last of the Genestealer in the left ruins had been killed by the Rangers but they fell in return to a lot of Devourer shots from the Flyrant.
The Rippers were quite happy to sit on the objective, it was worth 15pts afterall.
Meanwhile I still couldn't get the last brood of Stealers out of the ruins and the remaining Rangers/Vanguard were still alive and being a pain.
The Knight turned it's weaponry on the Flyrant...
and managed to kill it for Slay the Warlord. Not sure if it was a lucky shot and falling out the sky or a variety of it's potent weaponry but the beast was removed.
And to make a bad situation worse so were the Genestealers, vaporised in a large blast!
On the plus side the Strider got smashed and the two MCs moved out of combat.
And started another one in my turn taking on the entire squadron of Dunecrawlers but it was just too much and the Carnifex got trampled underfoot and the Tervigon was untouched by the mech but was still nursing a wound from previous battles. This was not going to end well with my high strength combatant gone.
Luckily the Tfex killed the last of the Ruststalkers but not before they killed the Gaunts.
My Tyrannocyte arrived and I disembarked the Hormagaunts, in Ian's turn the last three Ruststalkers assaulted the Rippers and I was left with just one wound on one base for their efforts.
The Knight headed over to the combat in the middle, Ian wanted to assault the Tervigon but I didn't think that was possible given he couldn't get into base contact [remembering this game from 6th Edition 2 years ago] however the new rules seem to suggest if he can make the charge and be within 2" of a friendly unit already in combat then the Knight could take on the Tervigon too. So I was satisfied [although not looking forward to the result] that he could do it. However, Ian rolled a 5" charge which was enough to get the Knight within 2" of the Dune Crawler but not enough to get him into combat with the Tervigon.
Which left it to focus it's attentions elsewhere and it spied the nicely bunched Hormagaunts who I'd forgotten to Run in my turn, and would have been in cover. Instead they were out in the open [although Ian did think there was cover from the pod] and so were wiped out
The Dune Crawlers piled in, which gave Deathleaper the opportunity to sneak out from his hiding hole. For these missions the Special Character is Objective Secured so thanks to the Crawler stepping off the objective he now had a direct path to stealing it.
With my Rippers dead [it looks like they took at least one model with them] the Ruststalker advanced, leaving their objective. Unfortunately with the los of the Hormagaunts all I had was the Tyrannocyte which floated towards the objective, but having confirmed my recollection in the rules cannot Run [or charge] and so was an inch or two from securing the 15pt enemy objective!
With the Tfex joining the assault I had one last decision to make - include Deahleaper or not in the melee and the answer was no. He could have been squished instantly losing me the objective, instead he played the mission rendering the assault moot, time was up and I had 15pts from the objectives and 1vp for Linebreaker. I failed to kill the Warlord, he was in that unit of three Rangers who just wouldn't die, as he didn;t when i attempted First Strike. Ian just had Linebreaker and StW for 2pts.
This was a great game with some interesting new adversaries. Rangers shooting ability is not to be underestimated. The Ruststalker too are particularly handy in combat, I'll consider them similar to Flayed Ones in future. The biggest blunder was not running the Hormagaunts, if I had I'd have won 32 to 2 but it was still a really great tactical game and although he didn't do very much it was Deathleaper who won it for me [though thats only thanks to Blog Wars rules] still, worth taking... now for my last game, what delights await?