Brocon Game 1

So the week after Conclave I got to return to Limerick and my old stomping ground of Casteltroy where UL can be found. This was Brocon's inaugural year and we were expecting something good as there was a large group of people pre-booked. This tournament used the ETC scoring system of 15/10/5 +/- VP system.

32 turned up on the Sunday for 40k: 2 were too hungover, 4 got stuck in Cork after their lift bailed and some others had work commitments. Still, a decent turnout for a first-time tournament. This was the last tourney that would take place before the ETC and the entire Irish team showed up for practice with their lists. There were spot prizes for people beating a player on the team during any round so this was an added incentive for everyone else to get one over on them.



My list is already posted. Thankfully I managed to get enough painted to make them presentable in pics. So onto game 1 with Padraig, one of the ETC lads heading to Germany.

Padraig's Nids
Seize Ground/Spearhead
His list was:
2 Primes with Boneswords (heh, bone)

2 x 3 Hive Guard
3 Zoans

2 Tervigons - 1 with Catalyst, 1 with Onslaught
2 x 10 Termagants

3 Trygons with Glands

I won the roll for corners and after we put down the objective markers (all in my corner) I knew that he had to come to me and with lots of short to mid-ranged weapons if I sat back I could inflict lots of shooty damage before I counter-charged.

 

From left to right my deployment was:
GH in Lasback, Empty Lasback, GH in Rhino, Long Fangs, Long Fangs, GH/RP in Rhino, Wolfblob. I left 1 GH unit in a Rhino in reserve.

From my LtoR his deployment was:
Gaunts, Zoans, Tervigon behind them, Hive Guard plus Prime, Tervigon with Feel No Pain, Trygons, Gaunts.

That's what the battlefield looked like. There wasn't a lot of terrain for him to hide his monsters behind so he was just going to have to rush me and hope I didn't take too much stuff out before he got there.

This was pretty much my turns 1 and 2. I just backed off, getting cover saves for everything for when the swarms arrived and shot the big stuff while using the Wolfblob to attract attention as it was the only thing in range of his Hive Guard. They were decimated but, who cares?

You'll notice that there's a Tervigon missing from the back and a Trygon from the right-hand side. Both were gunned down over 2 turns. The Trygon in the lead in this picture was dropped to 2 wounds.

Wolf Lord > Trygon. The green square is the objective marker. The GH in the Rhino arrive from reserve to cockblock the Gaunts. The firebase keeps on firing stripping wounds off things or killing them outright.

The other Wolf Lord moves to take out a Troops choice and gets stuck into a pile of Gaunts. I stand alone - I fucking love that song. The above picture reminds me of it.

He's coming right for us!

This is what happend after the Claw Lord emerged from the Gaunts. My Grey Hunters hopped out of their Rhinos to get stuck in aswell. The Claw Lord went for the Gaunts at the bottom of the pic to take out all but 1 of the scoring units as the Tervigon had got its ass clogged.

MISTAKE #1 - At the top of the pic are a unit of Zoans well within 14" of the Rhino hatch on its left side i.e. assault range. I get the Hunters out and make a run for both the Gaunts and Zoans to assault them. I shoot pistols at the Gaunts in the middle. He removes 3 casualties and that means that I can no longer multi-assault both units, tying the Zoans up in combat and possibly doing more damage due to Fearless wounds if I kill enough Gaunts.

Here's the rather predictable outcome of Grey Hunters vs Gaunts. The Rhino has immobilised itself. The Zoans float to the side and the Prime and Trygon rush the unit killing 4 of them but they hold up dealing one or two wounds in return.

The Rune Priest at the bottom of this lets go with Jaws over 2 turns and kills 5 Hive Guard - 2 from 1 unit and wipes out another. We were talking about this after and Padraig was saying that the power was demented against Nids simply because they've nowhere to hide - other armies are largely mechanised so can simply stay inside their transports or they've high I values so aren't worried either way. Nids simply don't have either luxury and if you are able to get at the backfield stuff they simply wither away as much of their support stuff (Tervigons, Hive Guard) has low I.

Back to the game - the Wolf Lord jogs away from the Gaunts leaving some out of picture Grey Hunters and the Rune Priest to deal with them. He makes for the beleagured GH squad fighting 2 monsters. They two lads get killed off but not before the cavalry arrives. Literally. It ends up looking like this: 

The Wolf Lords batter one Prime and the Tervigon to death before the Prime on the right gets stuck in and polishes off both of them over 2 turns. See the Zoans to the right? Not killing those little fuckers cost me the game. Well, not concentrating on the objectives cost me the game but the bad guy always blames the opposition for it in pop culture...

The Grey Hunters and Rune Priest team up to grab an objective. That's the last of the photos from the game. What happened was the Prime emerged the lone survivor from the big brawl and contested the objective the Grey Hunters and Rune Priest were holding - he didn't risk assaulting in case he didn't kill them all and the Fist bagged him as he had been wounded already. 

Mistake #2 - If you go back to the 2nd photo you'll see the pair of Razors. One of them was carrying a GH squad. I had been simply sitting there blasting stuff and content to hold an objective. What I should have done in my last turns (we got 2 more) was use the Razors as mobile cover to cockblock his units, just in case they got close, and keep his stuff away from both my scoring Razor and objective. I chose to sit there and shoot Zoans trying to cause Instant Death. Against 3+ Inv. saves. Tactical fucking genius.

Remember the Zoans? They spent 2 turns moving and running toward the objective in the ruins and he rolled a 6 when he ran to contest my objective in his turn 7 and drew the game. 

I was a bit pissed off at how sloppy I had got at the end but you live and learn. The game ended up 13-7 to me as I had decimated his army leaving just 3 models alive so at least I came out on the positive side of things.