Turn 2

No teleports.

Strategy Roll: TYRANIDS!!!

The Hydraphant decides to get this BBQ started as it advances and blasts the Blitz Brigade and Outriders 1.  Two Deth Koptas and a Gunwagon are slagged as is a single Outrider.



Without further ado, the Assault Swarm engages… well, almost the entire Ork army!  The Blitz Brigade is the primary target and both Speed Freak Warbands, Outriders 1 and the ‘Uge Kult of Speed are all declared intermingled with it.  Outriders 2 and the Hydraphant provide support for their respective sides. (Probably one of the biggest assaults we’ve ever seen!)



The Blitz Brigade loses a Gunwagon, the Outriders lose three members, Freaks 1 only loses a single Trukk, Freaks 2 lose one Trukk and one Skorcha, and then two Buggies and their other Skorcha from support fire, the Kult of Speed loses nothing.  The Tyranids lose eleven Hormagaunts and two Gargoyles, with support fire taking out another Gargoyle and two Termagants.  Combat resolution says… Orks by “3â€Â

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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Turn 3

The Lictor Swarm shows up in the ruins near the Ork Blitz… and they wonder where the buffet went!



Strategy Roll: Tyranids… AGAIN!!!

The Assault Swarm surges out of the Cathedral to engage the ‘Uge Kult of Speed, with the support of the Hydraphant and Harassment Swarm 1… and my opponent proceeds to make an insane number of 5+ armour saves, losing four Warbikes and two Skorchas.  The Bugs lose three Hormagaunts and three Termagants… and the Orks win by “2â€Â

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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Here's another End of Turn shot of my poor, battered War Engines... all sitting at 1DC!

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

That was a big WAAAAAARGH!! indeed.  Cool batrep. How did the Tyranid list play in your opinion?  Any issues you felt came up?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Yeah, I felt that taking a whole horde of "light" War Engines made them easy pickings against a "swarm" of enemies... *laugh*

Additionally, once the casualties start piling up and the action get rough... spawning sure seems weak.

Other than that, it was a lot of fun and both armies played really well... I'm *really* glad my opponent didn't take hordes and hordes of Skorchas... they're just a little over-the-top at the worst of times... with the Speed Freaks, they'd be nuts.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Nice reading thanks chroma :-)
What's your Hydraphant made from? Especially the front claws

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MoK's Painting Blog
Now Showing:
Mok's Modular Modern Messy Guard Army

My "Hydraphant" is actually my custom Dominatrix "The Red Queen" and all Her parts can be seen at the above link.

She was my submission the the Specialist Games Titan competition a while back... She's had an Epic Campaign played around Her and I'll be releasing that as a "Campaign Pack" some day.

I still have to actually build myself a "normal" Hydraphant.  *laugh8

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

A few questions on the mega assault at the beginning of turn 2 because that was definitely a major factor in the battle...


The result was 3 to the Orks, but was that due to the resolution die roll or was that pretty close to the actual resolution modifier?

I assume the Hydraphant's placement was due to ZoC restrictions?  It seems like there were better ways to line up the flame template, but only if you could place the model closer to Outriders 2.

Did you consider using Harrassment 1 for your first attack instead of the titan?  It would have had a little bit less firepower with a double move (6 AP4 versus 9 MW5, if I counted correctly) but using AP you could have targetted the LVs and probably killed off some of that Skorcha FF4 in Freeks2.  It would also have provided quite a bit more FF support fire in the assault.  I'm not sure it would have been better because I can't judge the distances very well in pics, but it might have been.

Do you think it would have been different if you hadn't intermingled KoS2?  That would have cut 25 units from the outnumbering count and would have reduced the number of units that could countercharge 10cm into FF range.  That could have netted you another point on resolution for outnumbering and reduced a kill or two.


Second option:

Did you consider going after the Outrider 2, Kos1, Fortress group instead?  A sustain fire from the Hydraphant and an assault from the Hierophant or Harassment 1 on the KoS1 with the others intermingled would have been nasty for the Orks as well.

===

You probably can't tell this, but do you know what the Ork player's thought was in choosing corners?  It didn't seem like it would be a big advantage.  With all the Nid war engines, they could deploy in a lot more "points dense" arrangement than the Orks.  I would have thought forcing the Nids to spread out with a side deployment and wide objective placement would have been preferable.

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Neal

As always really enjoyable Battle Report Chroma. Nice to see the Speed Freeks out for a jaunt.

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

They are - check out Tiny-Tims Tournament SF army; something like 2x 'Uge and one Big mob, with a minimum of 20 skorchas in them! Horribly fast and vicious in assaults.

A cracking fight though. Your comments on spawning has been my experience in the past - it really gets whittled down when you are 'up close and personal'. As a consequence, I was wondering how the army might work keeping one of the Harrasement groups to the rear as a reserve and to feed forward critters, or even if replaced by two Nodes? (so 3x Harridan, 2x Nodes and 1x Assault). While this means the army is a bit less mobile, does the extra spawning make up for this?

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Yeah, they seemed a little "good" for Orks... I think they'd be better balanced with the other two KoS "options" with FF5+, ignore cover... I really think it's just the relative rarity of the model that makes them appear less than the stat would warrant in most games.

Neal, I'll be addressing your post in a bit.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I did it because it sounded like fun. No more, no less. I haven't played Orks before, or even read up on their rules in any great depth, so I just figured I'd wing it.

Your third post on the boards... and you don't even provide any information... nice one, D!  *laugh*

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

There's nothing to provide - my boyz don't think, they Waaaaaaagh!

Lovely report Chroma. Thanks.

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It would be nice to get lightspeed,
so far we can only reach slight speed.- Erik M
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