Too Many Bugs

On Sunday afternoon I played Mark in a game of Epic. This was my first game in quite some time (particularly if not including Epic: Modern) and I was a little rusty on the rules. In particular my army list wasn't the best. I was fielding the following;

• Regimental HQ, with attached Ogryns in Chimeras
• Tank Company with attached Hydra
• Tank Company
• Super-Heavy Tank Company
• Vulture Squadron
• Artillery Battery

Only six activations in a 3000 point game is a disadvantage. Not a crippling one, but I certainly wouldn't go with any less activations than this, and I'd be more comfortable with 8. In hindsight I should have swapped the Super-Heavy company for two individual Super-Heavy tanks and a unit of Salamanders.

We were playtesting the latest version of the Tyranids army list. The development of the Tyranid list for Epic: Armageddon has been somewhat haphazard (going through several versions, fresh-starts, and parallel developments) and this version is part of an effort to nail down a single accepted and final Tyranid army list. The Epic fan community has developed quite an organised process for approving new lists - a list must have a certain number of (documented) playtest games, conducted by several groups. Mark had been playing a few games with his Tyranids lately, trying different approaches each time. For this game he had gone with an infantry heavy list consisting of the following;

• Large Tyranid swarm
• Medium Tyranid swarm
• Medium Tyranid swarm
• Small Tyranid swarm with 3 Zoanthropes
• Small Tyranid swarm with 3 Zoanthropes
• Medium Lictor swarm
• Small Lictor swarm
• Medium Exocrine swarm
• Trygon swarm 

I deployed my Vulture squadron on overwatch, the Basilisks on the Blitz objective, one tank company in the center, and the remainder of the units on my right flank. Mark deployed his units similarly, leaning towards the center and right.

The first turn was uneventful. Mark's army has very little long ranged firepower so I suffered no damage. My units mostly chipped away at gaunts. It was at the end of this turn that I saw the key strength of Tyranid units - they get to Swarm, bringing back dead Gaunts during each end phase. The number they bring back depends on how many synapse creatures they have, with synapses within 30cm of the enemy or broken counting for half. Combined with the Expendible rule (killing Gaunts does not inflict blast markers) Tyranid swarms are quite hard to break with shooting. The trick is to try and inflict hits on the synapse creatures (Warriors and Hive Tyrants), because killing Gaunts achieves very little.

End of turn 1. Both sides have advanced but no major damage inflicted.

At the start of turn 2 my 1st tank company (also my Break the Spirit unit) was positioned very close to a medium Tyranid swarm. The roll for initiative was a tense moment - the person who acted first could set the terms for the resulting firefire (or run away). Mark won the roll and (after some preparatory shooting and retaining the initiative) the swarm surged into base to base contact. Four tanks and a Hydra were destroyed by Tyranid attacks and the rest of the company was wiped out by the combat-resolution result. In hindsight this was the moment I lost the game. Not only had I lost a 700 point unit, Mark had achieved Break the Spirit, giving him one of the two victory conditions needed to win.

1st Tank Company facing off with a medium Tyranid swarm

A Trygon swarm erupts from the ground in the middle of my right flank.

On turn 3 I had slightly better luck. On the right flank my regimental HQ, 2nd tank company, and super-heavy tanks all managed to break Tyranid formations. But it was too little too late. With 1st Tank Company gone I had nothing in the center, and Mark's medium swarm (reinforced by the medium Lictor swarm which had suddenly appeared) easily swamped my gunships and artillery to claim the Blitz objective.

Trygon swarm engaging 2nd Tank Company. After a close fight the Trygons are broken and driven back.

Lictors softening up the defenses of the Blitz objective, with a medium swarm waiting ready to overwhelm it.

Mark has also blogged his version of the battle.


Overall impression, I quite like this version of the Tyranid list. I have some Epic Tyranid models sitting around, and often contemplated organising them into a usable army. The fiddliness and excessive number of special rules in other versions of the list put me off, but this version strikes a good middle-ground. Only a couple of special rules but it gives a distinct and appropriate feel on the table. In particular I like the way Gaunts and Synapse creatures work. Despite a lack of ranged shooting they are effective, and you get the impression of these infinite swarms that when you kill one another just pops up. But they also have a weakness in that if you can "shoot the big ones" (the Synapse creatures) mopping up the rest isn't too bad. 

More Epic Painting

Another good couple of days painting. The original goal for the weekend was to re-base my Guard infantry;

IG Infantry Company, with Fire Support and Ogryn ("close assault battledroid") upgrades

Having finished that I went through and took stock of what marine models I had left to paint. My Epic marines were acquired secondhand from several different sources, so it's quite a random mix of models that may or may not match the formations in the army lists. For example, I found I had 8 Land Speeders, where the official unit size is 5. I have 3 Land Raiders and 3 Predators, both of which come in formations of 4. In the end I decided to paint enough Rhinos for all my non-Scout units, plus a unit of Land Speeders. Since the Speeders conveniently have the same points cost as a bike detachment and can fill a similar role, they will replace one of the bike units;




I've also been considering background fluff for them, and have decided to call them the Red Hammers chapter (while adopting "No Shenanigans" as the official chapter name was considered, the committee felt it was not GRIMDARK enough for an army in the 40K universe). They are a successor chapter to the Space Wolves, using a stylised version of Thor's hammer as their symbol;

Finally, after visiting my brother and raiding his bits box my Warlord Titan is now suitably armed;

 Next project will be some terrain. I'm very happy with the surface of my gaming table, and with my woods. But my hills are pretty bad, and I don't have a city for my Titan to stomp. So some hills and 6mm buildings are needed.

An Epic Painting Week

The burst of motivation that let me paint up two detachments last weekend didn't fade during the week. By Wednesday I had finished everything I needed for my initial 3000 point no-shenanigans Marine list, except for the bikes (which will be another 8-10 weeks before the models arrive).

While I have more Space Marine models I could have painted (in particular two of my detachments currently lack Rhinos), I decided instead to go back and re-base my existing Epic stuff in the new "Hungarian plains" default basing scheme. Which proved to be a good idea, since the current basing on the Guard infantry was pretty bad;

 The round bases on most of the individual metal infantry were clearly visible in the permafill, and if I had done any washing/drybrushing, you couldn't tell. I usually do fairly well in painting score at Epic tournaments, so thankfully my opponents must have been focusing on the tanks (which I have put most of my effort into) rather than the infantry. I've done the company commander and his bodyguards (bottom of image) and the goal for this weekend is to rebase the rest of the infantry. The objective markers and Warhound Titans are already done;

War of the Exodites: An Epic Tournament

Last sunday I played in an Epic: Armageddon tournament, hosted by the Christchurch Wargaming Club in Woolston. Most tournaments tend to have competitions for half a dozen different games all run at the same time. But since EA is a more niche game, we've found it best to run it by itself, so as to not force people to choose between Epic and a more popular game.

This weekend's event ("War of the Exodites", organised by Tim) featured six armies. And quite an eclectic mix it was too. The forces involved were;

•  Imperial Guard Steel Legion (Jonathan W, AKA me)
•  Imperial Guard Steel Legion (Johnathan P)
•  Ork Ghazgkhull Warhorde (Mark)
•  Eldar Fir Iolarion Titan Clan (Tim)
•  Imperial Guard Harakoni Warhawks (Kevin)
•  Eldar Iyanden Craftworld (Andrew)

So two experimental and one developmental army list in use. My own force (written up an hour or so before the event start) was centered around the new pride of my army, a Reaver Titan. Now I normally field two Leman Russ companies as my main "hold the line" units, and the rational part of my brain knew (even while I was painting the model) that the titan should be replacing one of these. Unfortunately this rational part of my brain was elsewhere that morning (I blame St Patrick's Day) and I decided to field both the two tank companies and the titan. I knew fielding this many expensive units would bring down my activation count. What I didn't click to, until midway through my first game, was that the Reaver (at 650 points) costs exactly the same as a Leman Russ company. In other words, destroying any one of these three units would give my opponent the Break the Spirit victory condition! I had rolled a critical failure on my Design Army (Epic) skill check.

My first opponent was Andrew, with his Iyanden Eldar. Despite not having played a full game a of Epic before Andrew defeated three players who usually rank highly in local competitions, to end with 3 wins from 3 games. His army, featuring several formations of Wraithguard in Wave-Serpents, proved to be highly effective, particularly against the armour-heavy lists that Tim, Mark, and myself had all decided to field. But Andrew also played it well. He used his higher activation count to full advantage, kept pressure on me at all times, and made good use of firefights to break and destroy enemy units.

My titan, flanked by two Vulture gunships

Andrew's wraithguard swoop in to attack my tanks

Andrew's units still advancing, keeping up the pressure

My second game was against Kevin's "Harakoni Warhawks". The Harakoni list is an experimental variant of the Imperial Guard, representing an elite infantry formation that drops in by grav-chute. It has some similarities (tactically) to drop marine lists, in that there is the tradeoff between units initially on the board holding ground, and and units available for drop assaults. This was a hard fought game (and closer than the final victory conditions suggest) but in the end Kevin won on turn 4.

Grav-gliders unleashing their rocket pods on my tanks

My command company on the receiving end of a drop-assault

My last game was against Johnathan P's Imperial Guard. It is always interesting to play somebody with the same army - there is no better way to appreciate the merits of a unit than to both field it and face it. Johnathan's army shares many of the same units as mine, but he plays with significantly more infantry - two foot infantry companies with support weapons, as well as a Stormtrooper unit with Valkyries. This game started very badly for me - Johnathan wiped out my infantry company with his first activation. A Leman Russ company moved foward, fired, and where there had been a full mechanised infantry company there was now a single infantry stand. Early into turn 4 I offered to conceed, and Johnathan accepted.

Two Imperial Guard armies facing off

My tanks engaged in a firefight with Johnathan's infantry

Cheers to Tim for a well-run event, enjoyed by all. I managed to spoil my own fun a bit by very poor list design, but it was still good to roll some dice and see some well-painted armies. So now my goal is to plot a more reasonable army that makes use of my Titan. Cunning plans are forming in my brain... more in a future blog post...