The Roost of Turkadactyl

The planet Kaaltok hangs alone with a dim star it’s only company in the Eastern Fringe, on the edge of Tau space. Isolated by strange grav-metric phenomenon it remained untouched for untold millennia until without warning the grav storms ceased and the planet was left open to the rest of the cosmos. Soon several powers began to make planet fall on the barren wastes, each with it’s own agenda. The blood of many will soon soak the ground of this isolated place, and each faction demanding a penance in blood for those that challenge their claim to this forgotten place.

With the release of Curse of the Wulfen Darrell allowed all generals to change their warlord and gear this month.  The warlord will stay the same for the rest of the campaign.  Here are the generals:

• Sebastian (Adeptus Mechanicus)
• James (Space Wolves)
• Devon (Space Marines- Ultramarines)
• Dave (Chaos Space Marines- Word Bearers)
• Darrell (Harlequins)
• Daniel (Blood Angels)
• Jerrod (Tau)
• Jace (Orks)
• Me (Tyranids)

The next stage of the campaign sees me match up against Dave and his Word Bearers.  Dave has stuck with Chaos through the good times and bad.  No one can claim he’s jumping on the bandwagon if Chaos ever get a more viable codex.  Those Termagants you see above don’t cost a lot of points but they sure do take up a lot of space.  Let’s see how many more cubs Momma Bear produces.

Tyranids- Hive Fleet Kodiak

HQ

• Hive Tyrant (The Overmind or Monstrosity)- Old Adversary (re-roll 1’s in combat), Ymgarl Factor, bonesword and lashwhip, twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms, adrenal glands, warlord trait- Feel No Pain, psychic powers- dominion (+6″ synapse), onslaught (unit can run then shoot), horror (-2 to ld, immediate pinning test)
• Tyrant Guard (2 models)- scything talons, rending claws, adrenal glands
• Flying Hive Tyrant- two pairs of twin-linked devourers with brainleech worms, wings, regeneration, psychic powers- dominion, psychic scream (6″ nova vs ld on 3D6), warp blast

Troops

• Tervigon- cluster spines, psychic powers- dominion, psychic scream
• Termagants (30 models)

Heavy Support

• Biovore

Word Bearers (I was not able to get a list from Dave)

HQ

• Lord (Fesgul Brassheart)- warlord (3 enemy units take a pinning test at the start of the game)

Elites

• Terminators (5 models)

Troops

• Chaos Space Marines (10 models)- Rhino
• Chaos Space Marines (10 models)- Rhino
• Cultists (10 models)

The deployment was Vanguard and the mission was the Relic.  My plan is to march those Termagants up and overwhelm the Relic.  With a Tervigon in play I’m bound to have one brood of Termagants run away with the prize.  We start with night fight on the first round.  Dave wins choice of deployment and I win first turn.

Turn 1

Fesgul Brassheart looked intently into his dataslate.  The Word Bearer Lord was sent to Kaaltok to reactivate a long-lost gate.  The grav storms had finally subsided and it was time to usher in a new gateway.  Brassheart was expecting visitors.  The blind fools of the false Emperor always rush in fool hardy.  The Tyranids though.  This was unexpected.  There was no sign of their arrival.  Where did they come from?  How much of the planet was already infested?  They are a difficult foe for they could not be easily corrupted, if at all.

It was night but the dawn was coming.  Brassheart could observe his reconnaissance team walking into the maws of the beast.  He ordered his elite to prepare for combat.  Until they were ready he could only watch the seemingly mindless horde advance towards his warriors.

“Interesting,” Brassheart thought aloud.  He had heard stories but now he had visual proof.  The bulging and cumbersome monster gave birth to how many?  Four, five, six, seven.  Seven little xenos ran forward covered in ichor.

Brassheart watched the flying beast take to the skies.  The head lit up and Brassheart could see it was having difficulties maintaining control.  Brassheart looked intently.

“It seems to be channeling some kind of power,” Brassheart hissed.  “If it channels the warp it can be tainted.”

The flying beast looked to have difficulties maintaining control and started to plummet to the ground.  At the last second it seemed to gather its wits about it and swooped up into the air again.  Brassheart cursed under his breath.  That beast will be a problem for sure.  Sometimes Brassheart did not like to be right.  He watched the flying beast take aim at one of his Rhino’s and stop the vehicle in its tracks.  The troops filed out in an orderly advance.

Brassheart watched his troops descent onto the alien bugs.  They were equipped with flame weaponry and would attempt to maximize casualties on the alien advance.

“Their numbers are too strong,” Brassheart spoke into his vox-recorder.  “Even with flame weapons that ignores any defense the small creatures may have my warriors could only remove half the number.  I believe they are only there for a distraction.  It is the large xenos filth that will cause is the problems.”

Turn 2

Brassheart’s warriors began filing into the transporter room.  It was about time.  They were needed.  Brassheart’s attention was brought back to the dataslate.  Dawn had broken and the battlefield was clearer now.  The alien horde advanced towards his warriors.  That bulging beast spewed out eight more gribblies from its belly.

The flying beast glided down and made contact with the ground.  Brassheart saw a glow emanate from its head but this time it was apparent that nothing backfired on it.  A dome appeared to grow like a bubble and two warriors fell to the ground clutching their heads and writhing in pain.  Their deaths were quick and painful.  The bloated beast then looked to brace itself and shot a goo like substance at the troops.  Brassheart watched the goo blow back in the wind and cover one of the little bugs, melting flesh and bone.  The goo landed on the Rhino as well and melted part of the hull away.

Brassheart was not disillusioned.  His troops were vastly outnumbered and he did not have a good feeling about what was going to happen.  Brassheart stared intently into the dataslate.  The little bugs and flying beast shot into his warriors slaying five of them.  “Too many of them,” Brassheart thought.  There was a small brood that seemed to be protecting the bulging beast.  Brassheart could see them chattering and then spring forward onto his warriors.  They struck with teeth and limbs and killed two more of Brassheart’s troops.  Brassheart’s warriors were clearly overwhelmed and could only deal three death blows to the little bugs.

Brassheart’s attention was brought to the other side of the shrine to the false emperor as more little bugs and a hulking monstrosity with what appeared to be bodyguards advancing quickly onto his other warriors.  Brassheart knew immediately that the wall of flame did not matter.  The little bugs would advance mindlessly and the large monstrosity’s armour seemed impervious to flame.  Brassheart watched the xenos charge in and rip his warriors apart.  His warriors swung valiantly and it appeared that they felled eight little bugs.  “Wait, what’s this?”  Brassheart muttered, “Four are getting back up.  It appears they have some sort of armour to them after all.”  Brassheart was taken aback though at the viciousness from the monstrosity.  As a veteran of the long war he has seen a lot but never anything like what he just witnessed.

Brassheart had to rely on his fodder now.

“Line up,” he said to his elites and they disappeared from the transport bay of his cruiser.

Brassheart will have words with the crew chief when he returns.  The coordinate command was to land in proximity of the bulging beast.  Instead he and his men scattered way too far off the mark and into the path of the hulking monstrosity.

“Open fire on the monstrosity,” Brassheart opened.  His warriors obeyed without hesitation.  Much to Brassheart’s surprise the bodyguards moved faster than anticipated.  They soaked up the fire and were slain.  Their looks were deceiving.  For lumbersome looking beasts they moved much faster than they looked.

Brassheart looked into the distance and watched his Cultists open fire into the little bugs.  The trees only provided minimal cover and five of the bugs were slain.

Turn 3

Brassheart looked at his datacoms.  During the materialization phase he sent some sensors out to monitor field activities.  Some numbers popped up on his visor.  Nine more little bugs spawned.  Brassheart was more interested in the fact that the bulging beast dropped the spawning pocket from its belly.  One could only assume that the beast was now barren but when dealing with the xenos do not take relief from any assumption.

Brassheart looked up and saw a mine drifting in the air over top and land behind.  He took note of the trajectory.  Something was hiding that he didn’t see before.  This unseen artillery proposed to be an interesting threat that would have to be dealt with later.  Brassheart knew the actions of his warriors would bring the attention of the xenos.  The flying beast jumped towards him and opened fire.  Brassheart watched two of his elite warriors fall in front of him.  The little bugs doubled back and were now standing at the edge of the forest.  They released some sort of beetle from their limbs, which ate through the armour of his closest warrior.  Brassheart cursed under his breath while he watched the monstrosity lumber away.

Brassheart ordered his Rhino to tank shot the monstrosity and flying beast.  Brassheart had a plan and watched it come to fruition.  The tank motored ahead and pushed the two monsters closer to him.  Brassheart wanted to eliminate the threats.  He theorized that the two seemed to have a control over the tiny beasts and if the nerve centre was eliminated than he could salvage a victory out of this.

Brassheart and his warriors charged forward and into a trap.  The monstrosity was ready for them.  It took six shots at them and Brassheart almost tripped over the bodies of his comrades as they were killed in the charge.  “Not like this,” Brassheart thought.  He did not have a good feeling about this.

Brassheart could feel the sticky wetness of his blood inside his armour.  The monstrosity hit him hard and rent his armour.  Brassheart did not know how he survived but he did.  He quickly gathered his wits and swung his axe in a berserker fury.  Brassheart was sure his axe cut through the flesh five times.  He caught his breath and readied himself for the next charge.  Brassheart heard some movement and watched the monstrosity stand up.  “Not true,” Brassheart yelled, “I saw you go down.  Do you feel any pain?”

Turn 4

Brassheart watched his screen light up.  His last warrior was dead.  The smoke in the air was a clear signal that he lost his Rhino as well.

Everything was unraveling at an uncontrollable pace.  The sheer ferocity of these Tyranids was staggering.  Out of his peripheral site Brassheart watched the little bugs dash out of the woods to his Cultists.  The Cultists were pinned because of an unknown artillery beast shooting floating mines of death and could not anticipate the charge.  They were ripped to shreds by the little bugs.

Everything else it seemed was coming down to bear on him now.

“Crew chief respond immediately,” Brassheart beckoned.

“Go Lord Brassheart,” the Crew Chief replied.

“I need an immediate evac….NOW,” Brassheart yelled.

The monstrosity swung at Brassheart while he was de-materializing.  The sword entered Brassheart’s heart.  Everything went dark.  Brassheart was not sure if he would wake again.

Dave calls the game at this points.  He had four Cultists left and it was inevitable what the end result would be.  I had a big scare at the start when I suffered a perils on the Flyrant.  I rolled a one on the chart, which is the nasty result.  I’ve failed a leadership ten test plenty of times so my nervousness was real.  I passed the test and passed the grounding check.  That was a big sigh of relieve.

I pulled some lucky rabbits out of the hat this game.  I think the lowest charge roll I tossed was a nine.  The Nids were hungry and it was impossible for me to fail a charge.  I also rolled made four armour saves out of eight dice one round for my Termagant’s.  The big rabbit was overwatch on Brassheart and the last two Terminators.  I rolled three 6’s out of six dice.  Since the devourers are twin-linked I re-roll three dice and out pop three more sixes.  Dave lost the Two Terminators on overwatch.  Brassheart then successfully put five wounds on my warlord and I pass two feel no pain rolls to keep my warlord alive with one wound left.  In a game of dice sometimes they roll your way and sometimes they don’t.

I hoped you enjoyed the narrative.  The next game will be 1250 points with a new random opponent.  I’ll keep bugging the others to submit a battle report and their armies interest in Kaaltok.