System:Epic Remastered, aka Epic 3rd edition with some fan edits. Scenario: Custom, see notes and first photo. Game Size and Factions: A bit under 6k of Chaos versus 3.6k of recycling Tyranids versus 2.4k of Space Marines.
Back in August, on short notice of a week, I set up a big multiplayer game for Sunday at Bring Out Your Lead. Based on my model collection and that someone could bring some extra Tyranids in the afternoon, the best fit was going to be Tyranids against Chaos, with dead Tyranids getting recycled.
The overall scenario was the forces of Chaos trying to hold five scattered Chaos Shrines (Take and Hold objectives), and destroy some Hive Nests (Bunker objectives), while the Tyranids were simply trying to eat stuff.
With a last-minute addition of some Marines, this ended up as a three-way fight with the Crimson Fists coming in from the side to take and hold a sacred statue. We only managed two turns, on the other hand the forces intentionally started very close together so a fair amount happened across two turns – and with inexperienced players using large forces I’m pretty happy. Apart from the number of players on each side, due to one of the players wandering off we ended up with the whole of the Tyranids controlled by teen Joshua (who did pretty well!) against three older players using the Chaos forces.
For a future participation game I’d make the detachments bigger and simpler, and split the actual army lists into smaller chunks so that each player would have their own separate set of detachments.
Thank you Alex, Dave, Joshua, Peter, and Sebastian!
The overall scenario.The battlefield was 8×6’, or roughly 240×180 cm.The Chaos forces started in the middle of the table, at least 40 cm from any edge, while the Tyranids moved on from the three green sides and the Crimson Fists moved on from the far dotted-blue side. The red circles show the locations of the Chaos Shrines, and the Crimson Fists’ statue objective was near the far Shrine.Another view of the battlefield.After the first movement phase. You can now see the warp rifts, represented by the old Warhammer Storm of Magic hemispherical templates. Peter’s Crimson Fists can be seen on the right.Another view after the first movement phase, with the Hierophant Biotitan visible bottom-left.And the other side, showing mechanised Nids advancing through the woodland on the left and smaller Biotitans on the right.The middle of the table.
Shooting took a toll on the Nids, as expected, but several still managed to reach combat in the assault phase. For the fortifications we said that the defenders wouldn’t break or retreat if beaten. One of the shooty Biotitans reached the Reaver (a 40k Bloat Drone conversion), but was beaten without doing much damage.
Another view of turn one assaults. Almost all the the Assault Spawn transports had been shot down, but the remainder still made a mess of the Marines on the wall.In turn two a massed spore podding detachment of Tyranids arrived behind the Crimson Fists. Two Tyrants, three Zoanthropes, 15 Carnifexes, and five Lictors!Unfortunately about half the Synapse Creatures landed in the river, and sank before they could get out of their pods. 🙄Podding Tyranids facing massed sustained fire.
With the podding Tyranids facing massed Whirlwinds, Land Raiders, and Terminators, all on Overwatch orders to improve their shooting, the remaining Synapse Creatures died before the Assault phase and the detachment failed to charge.
The Predators also made a mess of the Khorne Berzerkers coming across the river, killing all their transports and most of the non-Berzerker Marines.
At the other end of the table, the recycled mechanised Nids and Biotitans moved in, getting further than they had in turn one! Also the daemon detachments started pouring out of the warp rifts.The Hierophant Biotitan was supported by Trygons tunnelling up, but was still perilously close the the warp rifts!The sad remnants of the podding detachment after the Crimson Fists finished shooting.With some exceptional shooting, the Marines in the tall building managed to take four wounds off the Hierophant with four dice. Even with re-rolls for Overwatch orders that was painful.Mortarion and his Hounds charge the Hierophant, and the Bloodthirsters fail to charge due to massed Blast markers from the Biovores. (is this extra text?)This went roughly how you’d expect, with the Hierophant taken down by ‘a bunch of ankle-biters’. To add insult to injury, the death throes of the Hierophant barely killed anyone.Meanwhile, the remaining Berzerkers killed all the Crimson Fist tanks they could reach, which wasn’t very many due to the Rhinos having all turned into mangled wreckage.The recycled mechanised Nid detachment got charged before all the Genestealers could get out, leading to a horrific 61:26 assault total, which led to a lot of dead Nids.The end of turn two.
At the end of turn two we had to call the game to allow time to pack up. Due to the lack of turns, the Tyranid recycling didn’t kick in enough to have enough impact on the game, which will need to be dealt with if running a similar scenario in the future.
The Tyranid artillery in the corner, who did a reasonable job of inflicting Blast markers.Finally, at the other end of the table the Berzerkers had pushed the Crimson Fists back off the Imperial statue, while the Nurgle forces held the Chaos statue.
Overall, a fantastic game, but with lessons to learn for future versions!
