This was our first trial of the Planetary Assault rules. After a failed assault from the Scouts (I should have just let them be meat shields for the Whirlwinds) the 'nids won it. We called it as my Devastators couldn't be in two places at once. 2-1 to the 'nids Blitz and Take and Hold to Blitz.

Tyranid


Space Marines

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Start of Game


Start of Game


The Scouts move into cover and spread out.


The BTS lands.


It engages the Tacticals.


One stand lives, two gaunts go down.


The Whirlwinds drop some pain on the BTS.


The Land Speeders dobule and get the BTS in a crossfire.


The Harridan advances and lays a BM on the Scouts.


The Vindicators advance on the BTS and take out two stands.


The Dom advances on the Scouts and lays a BM.


The Bikes engage the BTS.


A Tyrant goes down, and it goes to a second round.


The Marines win just barely.


The Dactylis sustain on the scouts and take one out.


The Destructors double on the Stelers and lay a BM.


The Devastators march to the Dactylis.


The SC doubles to cover them.


The Annihilator's Hunter sneaks off a shot on the Dom and wounds her.


The Lictors appear.

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Turn 2


Turn 2


The Devastators engage the Dactylis, taking one out, they hack the rest down.


The Annihiatlors advance and fire on the Lictors, score a bunch of hits but only one goes down.


The Lictors engage the Annihilators.


Two Lictors and all but one tank goes down, the Marines win.


The Genestealers engage the Destructors.


Three go down.


Somehow, the Marines win and throw the Stealers back.


The Vindicators advance on the BTS, laying a BM.


The Land Speeders advance on the BTS, and break them.


The Harridan advances on the SC and lays a BM.


The Whirlwinds sustain on the Stealers and take 3 out.


The Dom doubles on the SC and takes out a Hunter and two Rhinos.


The Scouts ZoC the Dom.


The SC marshalls.


The Bikes double back to guard the Whirlwinds.


The Tyrgons surface.

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Squats 2019-10-17

Turn 3


Turn 3


The LandSpeeders take out the Tyrant and 'fex in the BTS.


The SC doubles on the Harridan and takes out two Gargoyles.


Swarm 1 lands.


The sneak by the speeder's ZoC and engage the Vindicators.


One for one.


The 'nids win it barely.


Swarm 2 lands.


They engage the Bikes.


The Bikes don't hit much and two go down to one gaunt. The Bikes are wiped out and my two 1 unit Predator formatinos break.


The Whirlwinds sustain on the Trygons and lay a BM, the scouts engage them.


1 Rhino goes down and the Scouts loose.


The Trygons engage the Whirlwinds.


They wipe them out and take the Biltz.


The Scouts sustain on the Harridan and take out a Gargoyle, breaking it.


The Dom doubles on the SC and lays a BM.


End of Game


End of Game

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Squats 2019-10-17

damn, that planetary assault was incredibly effective, even with the jammy marines winning some of the assaults.

There is a downside...
Don't forget to look at the other one, in which 1/4 of my army failed to appear on turn 3.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

that's very true, just read the other report. Does the BTS count for objective purposes if it doesn't arrive (like Necron or Eldar BTS' off board)?

I'll have to read up on the rule (unless Dave wants to post it here), but it does sound like winning a game can come down to a dice roll or two, which doesn't sound much like fun (and, yes, I know that can happen without this rule..)

I don't believe so, as per the FAQ:



The Dom would have been the BTS under this.

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Squats 2019-10-17

EDIT: ninja'd by Dave.

No; according to Dave during the game, the Dom counted at BTS if the big swarm never came in.

To be fair, it took a series of improbable dice roles for that to happen. In this game, I would have preferred if my BTS formation did not come down on turn 1, all on its own - it got worked over pretty good. I actually found the drop list more fun, as tyranids are particularly uninteresting to me as a fairly blunt-instument CC army... "ok, take all swarms and try to break the enemy's castle" is what it usually boils down to. I say this after umpteen playtests on either side of the equation.

Because of the random turn arrival, and the fact that the opposing player moves the mycetic swarm 45cm, then you roll for scatter, it is quite difficult to coordinate the drop with other swarms/teleporters/tunnelers.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

doh, you're right, I forgot about that - my poor interpretation of the rules.

I guess the trick is to make it relatively random ('nid like) without the game intrinsically being won or lost by 1 or 2 dice rolls. I do like the opposing player moves the swarm bit - is that to introduce that "randomness"?

I agree too, it makes for a far more interesting batrep than the usual "double, BM, advance, assault, support, repeat" strategy (appreciated as those reports were )

Ya, the opponent movement is meant to be the random part. I would have liked to have them just land in ZoC and have to assault, but that opens up a whole can of worms of landing in multiple ZoCs where there's no intermingling etc. Anyway, we'll keep testing it and see how it goes.

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Squats 2019-10-17