Miniature Battles, literally!
I just attended a Patrol Clash (previously known as 40k in 40 minutes) tournament at Discordia Games. I played Tyranids, of course, but I decided I wanted to try a different composition than usual. I've been using a lot of Genestealers lately and I've previously used a lot of leaping gaunts, but I wanted to do something different. With the way 4th edition 40k works, large squads and lots of guys are better than they were before, and a couple things that Tyranids can do well is large squads and lots of guys. I've been interested in trying out Scythegaunts for a while (Basic 4pt Gaunt with Scything Talons.) Scythegaunts, at 6pts each and 3 attacks on the charge, are pretty cheap and cheerful. Since they still get Fleet, they are almost as fast as a Leaping Gaunt, typically hitting the enemy lines in the 2nd turn. Although it doesn't take much to kill each one, there's a lot of ones to go through. Typically, Scythegaunts don't do enough damage on their own to kill the enemy, so they are generally used as a Tarpit unit. Tarpit units hold an enemy squad in place until they can be dealt with by your army. Due to Patrol Clash rules, I couldn't bring a Tyrant to be my Enforcer, so I brought some Reaping Warriors. (Rending Claws, Scything Talons, Leaping, all the CC upgrades, 41pts each.) I ended up with 3 Warriors and 42 Scythegaunts split into 2 equal broods, with a Hive Node in each for extra insurance. 45 models in 400pts is pretty good, and it got a few people's attention at the tournament.
Game 1: The first mission we played was Cleanse, and I was paired up against a Thousand Sons Chaos player. 2 squads of Ksons, each with a Sorceror with Doom Bolt. Lots of Dakka, and they can move and shoot. Turn 1, I move forward and he moves back (slowly) and shoots, killing a few gaunts. Turn 2, I move forward and catch the slower squad with one of my Scythe Broods. The leaping Warriors close the distance on the other squad and lunch is served. My other scythe brood joins the Warriors attacking a squad of Ksons in the next turn. Both Scythe broods have a hard time killing those 2Wound marines, but they slowly wear them down, while the Warriors speed up the process a bit. By about turn 4, I'd eaten every single model of his. The tournament organizer was surprised we finished so quickly (there were probably at least 15 minutes left out of the 40!) We began filling out our score sheets and discovered something. Although he had done a fair amount of damage to my squads and gotten one brood close, he hadn't taken any of them under 50%, which meant he scored zero Victory Points, while I got 400pts for his army and an additional 50pts for holding a table quarter. As we watched the others play, however, a thought ocurred to me. I realized that the brood that engaged first had probably been within Rapid-Fire range of his squad during his first turn, which was the only time they got to shoot. I pointed this out to him, and, after I encouraged him for a minute or so, he rolled the rest of the dice, killing off a couple more gaunts, which brought the brood below half and gave him 68 Victory Points. Okay, so it's not much, but it's better than a big zero! This guy was a pretty good opponent and I had a good time with this game.
Game 2: The second mission had us starting with only 1 Troop choice on the board, with everything else starting in Reserve and Night Fight for the first two turns. I was up against a savvy player with a couple of squads of Grey Knights (very nicely painted) and a big squad of Storm Troopers. Although his Grey Knights couldn't see much to shoot the first two turns, the great distance separating our deployment zones and the fact that my second Scythe Brood didn't show up until turn 3 more than made up for it. Once the Grey Knights could see straight, they blew the ichor out of my bugs in a hurry, leaving the final gaunts in a pile about 10 inches away. Another good opponent, and he knew how to use his army well. If reserve rolls and mission hadn't conspired to let him shoot me piecemeal, he probably still would have won, but it would have been a closer game. His only casualty was a Storm Trooper with a plasmagun overheat. Ah well, I'll get him next time!
Game 3:The final game was a Take and Hold mission against Kult of Speed Orks. Rather typically, we both moved toward each other (surprise!) and met in the middle. His squad of Warbikes and his Trukkboyz jumped on one of my Scythe broods, while the others and the Warrior moved around the other side of the center, threatening his Deathcopta and (Wartrakk?) The Warriors managed to catch the Wartrakk and bring it down, while the second Scythe brood caught the Trukkboyz and Warbikes as they were finishing off the first Scythe brood. The bikes disappeared quickly and I got ready to focus on the Trukkboyz. With about 18 Scythegaunts left, I figured I could take them out, but it would be quite a fight. Then, as I counted up the attacks and started to roll, he just pulled the entire unit off the table, and told me to go ahead. I'd never encountered something like this before. He didn't like the odds, so he just pulled the whole unit! When he said he was sure, I shrugged and went on with it. My Warriors finally caught up to both the Deathcopta and the Trukk and sent them to the great Mekboy in the sky and I won the game. This game wasn't as much fun as the others, I hate to say. Sure, I won, but my opponent was rather argumentative and didn't seem to have a firm grasp on his own rules (or even a Codex.)
Aftermath: After all dice were down, we were each given a scrap of paper and told to go look at all the armies and vote for Best Painted. My army was the only one fully painted, but some of the Guardsmen looked pretty good and those Grey Knights were awfully pretty. (The Orks were just dumped back in the box as the player said he didn't stand a chance for Best Painted. Once everything was added up, the organizer made the announcements. Battle Winner was the Grey Knight player, Best Sportsman was the Thousand Sons player, and Best Painted by unanimous decision, was me! Okay, so it wasn't a large field of competitors, but I still felt pretty happy about winning Best Painted.
After the tournament was over, I stuck around and got in a 1000pt game against the (appropriately enough) Thousand Sons player. I decided to continue my experiments with Scythegaunts and Warriors, bringing my totals up to 2 Broods of 32 Scythegaunts and 10 Reaping Warriors, with a Double Venomfex as support. We went with a Take and Hold mission and went at it. He had a couple of large squads of Ksons, plus a Lord, some Kson Terminators and the Lord of Change. His Lord moved up to the objective on the first turn and was immediately enveloped by Scythegaunts, who managed to drag him down after a couple of turns. As the other Scythegaunts advanced on his lead squad, my Warriors snuck around the edge and managed to catch him by surprise, killing a couple of the Ksons there. Then his Terminators showed up and shot a few of my Warriors down before they were wiped out by the rest. Both broods of Scythegaunts advanced into the Kson squads, starting to whittle them down. The Lord of Change adjusted the odds a bit until I managed to get several Warriors in contact with him, which sorted him right out, then took care of the rest of that squad of Ksons. Although his other squad had finally managed to chew through my other Scythe squad, but it was too late for them to do anything. My Warriors were on them and ripped them to shreds rather quickly. Adding up the Victory Points later, I think the game was a little closer than it seemed. I got 1000VPs, but he probably ended up with about 700-800, so it was still a solid win, but not a walkover.
As a note, I've developed a format for making quick notes about games so that I can write up battle reports about them later. I start with the game name or mission and any unusual stuff about it, such as deployment rules if I'm not familiar with the mission or it seems important later. I then write down my opponent's army and any salient features thereof. (For example, Thousand Sons, 2 squads with Aspiring Champion.) I then write down the general stuff my units do. (All: move forward, or Warriors sneak around side of rocks.) I don't need to detail every move, I just want to get a quick description down so I can remember it later. If any models or units have particularly stunning moments, either good or bad, I try to write those down as well. It doesn't take long to do and it makes it much faster to play while still doing a battlereport. I'll give you an example of how I do it, so that you can try it if you'd like. Although this is from another tournament, it really helps clarify what I'm saying.
Game 1: Necrons. Grab the Counter. Only Troops on
board.
Gaunts move up while Genestealers sneak around.
Gaunts go instinctive and Attack. They are out of range, but find the
objective. The Gaunts are charged by Wraiths and 11 Genestealers are
shot down to 5 by Destroyers and fall back off the edge of the board.
Wraiths are ground down with a lot of attacks.
Necron Warriors Rapid Fire Gaunts into oblivion, while the Scarabs hold
the Genestealers in place. (Note that sometimes I will also do a quick
sketch of the board or a section of it to clarify a point or help me
understand what I did later.
So, there you have it. 4 concise batreps in a small space, but without disrupting the games.
If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know