Here's the map (ignore the dots on it, the start-level shot of the map got bugged, and I had to take one from midgame).
Primary objective.
Secondary objective.
Final objective.
As always, we begin by moving into formation, and we are immediately attacked.
More badbros are spotted afterwards.
First we mop up the genestealer and leman russ.
Bye bye.
Then we unleash forty tonnes of napalm upon this genestealer
But wait, what is this? It conveniently survives with 1 hp?
Oh, right.
This is the Tyranid equivalent of our exarchs' battle fortune. Incredibly annoying, it can leave a squad standing with 1hp despite 6 units pounding at it.
Fortunately, though, a Dire Avenger knocks it down, and another one attacks the leman russ.
Next turn, more genestealers come for our genes.
And some new abomination says 'hi'.
Carnifex. Real damn motherfuckers, we will hate those with a passion. Tyranid biomechanical tanks, they can withstand whole volleys of enemy fire and rip everything we have to shreds. Moreso, they are not *warmachines* but assault squads, which means our fire dragons are completely useless against them. More often than not, it takes a quarter of our whole army to bring those motherfuckers down.
Like most Tyranid melee fighters, they have Frenzy, but they are also single entities and have the Terrifying ability. Terrifying is Fearsome on steroids, which means attacked units are twice as likely to flee or break (as opposed to Fearsome's 1.5).
More stuff coming from the north.
Another defensive position. Actually, funny thing, I never played this game 'iron man' (that is, no reload after losing a unit), and now I'm like calculating the distance between enemy slaughterhouses (like the carnifex) and our forces 10 times, so we don't get too overwhelmed.
An autocannon shoops an avenger
Leman russ shoops second avengers.
Current standing. Let's get this shit on.
lololololo
That is some HUGE domoges. After checking, it turns out the immolator actually has a higher attack rate than a leman russ.
Executioner and wraithguard > hybrid lemon bus.
Hawk and vypers finish off the stealers. Meanwhile the land raider is hit for 6 damage by a fire dragon, and flees. I don't chase it, as to not compromise our formation.
Next turn, an autocannon (1) shoots a scorpion. Land raider (2) suicides to take a fire dragon's support fire from the genestealer (3) attacking one scorpion. The carnifex also rushes a scorpion.
Fortunately they can't focus fire for shit or at least one of the scorpions would have been in big trubble. I first dispose of the near-dead stealers with a vibro cannon.
I gangraep the carnifex and even drop an executioner, but it does no damage
Gotta chase this thingy away.
And finish off this shit.
I also keep trying to soften up the carnifex with just about everything I have, though it still refuses to die.
Finally, a dire avenger exarch slays it. But look at this motherfucker, he survived with barely 1 fucking hp. Wanna bet it was thanks to battle fortune?
Also, I don't know if it was a design choice or if it's a bug, but once dire avengers upgrade to exarchs, they stop using Ranged as their main attack, and instead go in with Melee, which hinders their usefulness against stuff like carnifexes quite a fucking bit.
A scorpion rips through the autocannon. And the avenger is there with 1 hp...
Insane courage? Fuck no, too early for that. Let's just form a protective circle around him and hope for the best. The rocketmen probably won't come after him anyway 'cause they're stuck protecting the prison.
Land raider + brood guard target the scorpion, and that's very much all that happens.
Plus, some more tyranid bros are spotted.
Harlequins harrass sum autocannon.
Wraithguard eradicate sum brood guards.
Vibro cannon... uh, seimics (?) the other ones to death.
And now I'm gonna show you, how retardedly powerful is Warlock Master's 'Doom' ability
WITNESS YOUR DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Yup. A fire dragon just instakilled a land raider. Inflicting 18/15 casualties. Cool, no?
Then we pester the stealers and rocketmen a bit and end turn.
The missile team suicides, genestealers seem to do nothing.
Next turn, the autocannon is out of business.
And we check the prison (and raep the remaining genestealers)
Oh yeah, seraphim are p. cool. Just like sisters of battle, they are Heroic, so they never flee or break. They are aerial units, marginally worse than our swooping hawk exarch, and with it, they shall form our core scouting/harassing aerial party. That will prove invaluable against the tyranid melee hordes.
Moving on, we find a leman russ, and we throw some ITZ at it.
Awww, no instakill this time
Seraphim finish the deed.
While warp spiders smack down an autocannon, previously made useless by the harlequins.
Enemy forces occupying the final objective.
And some on the secondary one.
There's no reason to get everyone out here, so I'll split forces, so we can attack the island-fortress from two sides.
Eastern detachment arrives to the scene, greeted by sum hybrids.
While in the west, hawk investigates the city, but finds nothing, and a vyper rapes the autocannon.
In a single turn, we liberate the eastern prison.
Oh well. Seraphim get this thing, let's see what it is.
Meh. Fairly useless.
Meanwhile, a genestealer tries to flank.
Immolator doesn't quite like it.
Hawk scouts the western front and spots a magus in the northern citadel.
Genestealer hybrid psykers. Not really that lethal, actually pretty useless as far as psykers go. No special abilities, and psyker powers are as follows:
- Hypnotic gaze - unit attacked by an enemy enhanced with this can respond with only half its attacks.
- Horror - if a unit fails a morale check at half its leadership, it becomes broken.
In the meantime, an autocannon is taken down.
Yeah, that's hypnotic gaze.
A genestealer thinks it's clever and assaults a scorpion.
Meanwhile, another beast is brought to its knees in the east.
The western one soon follows.
And we begin a full scale assault upon the motherfuckers.
Vibro cannon, spiders, hawk (1, 2, 3) attack the guardsmen, while vyper and off-screen harlequins (4, 5) take out the autocannon.
A missile team appears and opens fire on the fragile vypers.
The hybrids are quickly mopped up.
Immolator, hawk and scorpion kill the magus. Harlequin charges the guardsmen.
And another harlequin attacks the cornered guardsmen. They attempt to flee, but since there's only deep water next to them, all they can do is surrender (or keep running and drown, I suppose?)
All too easy.
Victoly!
This will be a p. cool map, iirc. And we shall meet proper tyranids this time, which will give many occasions for raep.
We inspect the barracks. Since we got a new unit (seraphim), something had to be kicked. I am *not* skipping the seraphim, so I confined the vibro cannon to the barracks because I think it's the least useful in our current roster.
Some exarchs get new abilities, among them a swooping hawk.
Yup, I know I said all exarchs should get battle fortune ASAP, but hawks are an exception. Hawks get *excellent* movement, scouting and survivability boosts thanks to hit'n'run.
Also, our harlequins can be upgraded.
One into a greater harlequin.
Yeah, this is pretty much a harlequin exarch. Same functionality, abilities, etc.
But the second one becomes a death jester.
From scouts, death jesters become devastators. They retain the harlequin abilities such as Lethal, Invisibility and Fearsome, but they get a range of 2, and are able to nail down support fire for attacked adjacent units. They make pretty neat sidekicks, and do quite good damage to soft targets.
And that's all for now. Next update, we liberate dragon bones and fallen fortresses. Stay tuned