The Harrowing of Lascent III
As recorded by Bellerophon, Junior Librarian of the Dark Angels, in conversation with Inquisitor Arraway
"So tell me why belial and his group were sent to this planet in the first place, Arraway? From everything i've gathered so far there was no reason to go there."
"Bellerophon, the inquisitorium doesn't typically respond to inquiries such as the one you've made, but I can be civil. The Dark Angel forces had been sent to investigate what was believed to be a rare psychic phenomenon in the Lascent system. The Inquisitorium outpost on Lascent II was reporting a large pyschic flux occurring in the system and had tracked it to Lascent III. When it was discovered to be the site of a chaos shrine Belial was brought into the fold, as was the Ravenwing of your forces, since they are rumored to but interested in pursuits of..."
"What the Ravenwing investigate always serves the emperor and that should be good enough for you Arraway! Please skip to the more relevant details."
"Tsk, Tsk. One should be more cordial with ones superiors Bellerophon. We believed there may have been chaos forces in the area, obviously, it seemed the warp disturbance indicated a possible demon infestation that needed investigation. The Grey Knights were too far away to deal with this sector of space, so we had to resort, ehm, other forces...
"Save your personal annotations, Arraway. The Lascent System is under treat of a tyranid invasion man! We need to remain focused on stopping it."
"Well aren't you the bold one. Suffice it to say there will be more where these came from. Its not clear if they are an offshoot of a kraken or leviathan, but they are certainly potent."
"That at least we can agree on. During his recovery Belial told me that investigation of the shrine, alerted him to the prescence of genestealer spoors. There may also have been other signs, its unclear at this time. The dreadnaught recording system was able to get this footage...
Battle played was first contact from battle missions book
This mission was played beofe the release of 6th edition.
For the uninitiated you divide the table into sixths with an objective in the middle of each. Each sixth gets a corresponding die roll associated with it. Enemy of tyranids deploys first rolling a die for each square and deploying there. Tyranids roll for each unit to determine deployment square where they will enter. Tyranids get first turn.
Battle strategy: HAHAHAHA, seriously do I seem like a guy with a plan here? Actually the only thing I wanted to do was to have alpha squad get the charge on one of the monstrous creatures. I was lucky in this regard as you will see. Otherwise I didn’t really understand the power of the doom of malantai. So he was a bit of an unknown. The tervigon I had also never faced before so I was curious to see what it could do. There were a lot of unknowns and we were testing out a new mission so it was kind of a fly by the seat of your pants game. The mission states that all non-vehicles can claim objectives in this game, so he had more scoring units than me, which I had to keep in mind.
Channeling Admiral Ackbar!
Turn 1 tyranids
Hive tyrant fires paroxysm on gamma squad, and assaults them killing three
Genestealer 1 assaults alpha squad and is wiped out, but not before killing Nishikawa, the cyclone guy.
Devourer termiguant shoot then assault bikes kill two. I had forgotten to take the scout move since it was my first time using them and as a result, they had to stay put. My opponent and I agreed to allow the attack bike to move for its scout.
tyranid warriors fire at tac squad doing pretty much nothing ( this would be their MO all game)
Consolidation
Da 1
Alpha squad charges hive tyrant, alpha squad plus gamma bring the beastie to 1 wound
Tactical squad fires on warriors exploding one
Jumpers move centrally hoping to engage the termigaunt squad
Attk bike turbo boosts, to get the hell outta that area where his friends are being barbequed.
Dread fires on gene 2 killing enough to make them take a leadership test, fail they run off table, (we did this wrong, but we did it consistently wrong, so…)
Last biker dies to termigaunts
Tyranid 2
Doom of malantai arrives in spore pod fires on jumpers killing none, the tactical and jumpers both pass the leadership for the spirit leech by doom of malantai (which gave me a false sense of security)
tyranid warriors fire on tactical squad and kill none
Hive tyrant dies to assault but takes two from alpha squad (gamma and alpha consolidate toward tervigon)
Tervigon births 12 and stops
Newly born tervies fire on tac squad killing 2
Devilguants fire on jumpers, killing two
Da 2
Alpha squad assaults tervigon
Gamma squad fires on birthed termiguants one frag missle scatters hitting belial, wounding him! Gamma then assaults the squad even though they have counter attack and wipes them out (fearless wounds).
Tac squad fires on warriors
Dread fires on doom
Jumpers fire on doom then assault doing nothing
Attk bike fires on devil guants
After assaulting
Tyranid 3
Doom leach essence kills all 3 remaining jumpers and 2 tac makes tac squad break
Devil gaunts charge alpha squad killing all
warriors fire on tac squad killing one
Tervigon consolidates toward objective 3
Da3
Gamma squad move into area terrain and fire on devil guants both missle scatter, thinking that since the missles and storm bolters will never be out of range of the tervigon it would be better to tackle the immediate threat of the gaunts. Probably should have assaulted… ah well
Tac squad regroups and fires on warriors missing
Dread fires on hw missing. Should have tried to assault doom instead, but he was making so many saves and was up to strength 6 I thought I would deal with him later.
Attk bike fires at doom, doing nothing.
Tyrand 4
Doom moves toward tactical then leeches all of them. No cover saves. meaning that the tactical marine, who was singin? He ain’t singin’ no mo’! Doom is now up to strength 10 (counter in pic is wrong) and has 10 wounds, you see where this is going right? attempts to large template blast dread but it scatters for a half strength hit, no damage
Warrior attempts to run for area terrain but falls short
Devilguants spread out and fire on termies killing one
Da 4
Attack bike fires on warrior killing him
Dread fires on doom and then assaults’ (forget to role for the extra attack)
Lone termie (Gaius) fires on tervigon (and finally hits him) and assaults but cant kill him, bringing him to one wound, leading to tied combat.
Tyranid 5
Doom cant hurt the dread due its reduced strength, dread wiffs
Devil guants assault termie, who survives 9 wounds
But tervigon finishes him with three more
Da 5
Dread and doom continue their slapfight
Attk Bike turboboosts to objective six
Right now the game is tied on objectives, cause dread is contesting.
Game continues
Tyr 6
Tervigon tries to limps/runs for objective 3 but cant reach
Devilguants try to grab cover, dread turns doom into wormfood
Da6
Bike turbo boosts to objective 1
dread moves towards tervigon but is out of range
Game ends
Tyranid objectives 1 dark angel objectives 1. Result draw. Its kinda fun having a game like that. i tried out some different units and some paid off some didn't.
Strategy recap
Deployment: i didn' realize that the tyranids would all enter from the board edge so i should have clustered all my troops as centrally as possible. Major oversight! Also
On turn 3 when i moved gamma squad into cover i did the right thing but my threat analysis was lacking. I should have fired on the tervigon and assaulted him he only had two woulds at that point so i prolly would have killed him and maybe had both termies left. Then i may have been able to consolidate back into cover and the devilguants would have lost synapse which meant they still would have attacked but at least they whould have been at initiative 1 and would have been feral and the tervigon would have been dead. Instead i fired frag at the guants. Mathematically krak has a 2/3 chance of hitting and frags have slightly better than 1/3 chance of direct hit. So next time kraks!
I underestimated the doom of malantai and is almost cost me the game. Assaulting the doom with jumpers was also a bad idea it would have been better to use those guys against some termigaunt threat, which was my initial plan and let the dread assault the doom. In addition the jumpers should have used their frag grenades which i forgot. I also should have rapid fired the doom on turn two and left the warriors til later. Also that damn leech essence owned me. Next time I gotta run away from doom of malantai with the tact squad. The other possibility was trying to assault it with the dreadnaught. On turn 3 I might have been able to reach.
Fun game. Mission book adds some spice. I think that the selection of units was good i just didn't use them to best effect.
"Arraway do you have any closing remarks to add to the record?"
"Well Belial was recovered and is undergoing treatment, and the surviving ravenwing was able to signal for reinforcements which may end up saving the planet, but the tyranids have achieved what they wanted which was a slight test of the planets defenses and they just about defeated the entire Dark angels battle group. Whats more, at this time its unclear what the tyranid battle group considering, isn't that supposed to be your area of expertise Bellerophon?"
"Its a difficult enough problem at the best of times Arraway, as you well know. I'm not sure what we can achieve if the reports of the Doom of Malatai presence are confirmed. I have a meeting with the master of librarians following this."
"Well lets not keep him waiting... The Emperor Protects."
Recording ends.
"So tell me why belial and his group were sent to this planet in the first place, Arraway? From everything i've gathered so far there was no reason to go there."
"Bellerophon, the inquisitorium doesn't typically respond to inquiries such as the one you've made, but I can be civil. The Dark Angel forces had been sent to investigate what was believed to be a rare psychic phenomenon in the Lascent system. The Inquisitorium outpost on Lascent II was reporting a large pyschic flux occurring in the system and had tracked it to Lascent III. When it was discovered to be the site of a chaos shrine Belial was brought into the fold, as was the Ravenwing of your forces, since they are rumored to but interested in pursuits of..."
"What the Ravenwing investigate always serves the emperor and that should be good enough for you Arraway! Please skip to the more relevant details."
"Tsk, Tsk. One should be more cordial with ones superiors Bellerophon. We believed there may have been chaos forces in the area, obviously, it seemed the warp disturbance indicated a possible demon infestation that needed investigation. The Grey Knights were too far away to deal with this sector of space, so we had to resort, ehm, other forces...
"Save your personal annotations, Arraway. The Lascent System is under treat of a tyranid invasion man! We need to remain focused on stopping it."
"Well aren't you the bold one. Suffice it to say there will be more where these came from. Its not clear if they are an offshoot of a kraken or leviathan, but they are certainly potent."
"That at least we can agree on. During his recovery Belial told me that investigation of the shrine, alerted him to the prescence of genestealer spoors. There may also have been other signs, its unclear at this time. The dreadnaught recording system was able to get this footage...
Battle played was first contact from battle missions book
This mission was played beofe the release of 6th edition.
For the uninitiated you divide the table into sixths with an objective in the middle of each. Each sixth gets a corresponding die roll associated with it. Enemy of tyranids deploys first rolling a die for each square and deploying there. Tyranids roll for each unit to determine deployment square where they will enter. Tyranids get first turn.
Battle strategy: HAHAHAHA, seriously do I seem like a guy with a plan here? Actually the only thing I wanted to do was to have alpha squad get the charge on one of the monstrous creatures. I was lucky in this regard as you will see. Otherwise I didn’t really understand the power of the doom of malantai. So he was a bit of an unknown. The tervigon I had also never faced before so I was curious to see what it could do. There were a lot of unknowns and we were testing out a new mission so it was kind of a fly by the seat of your pants game. The mission states that all non-vehicles can claim objectives in this game, so he had more scoring units than me, which I had to keep in mind.
Channeling Admiral Ackbar!
Turn 1 tyranids
Hive tyrant fires paroxysm on gamma squad, and assaults them killing three
Genestealer 1 assaults alpha squad and is wiped out, but not before killing Nishikawa, the cyclone guy.
Devourer termiguant shoot then assault bikes kill two. I had forgotten to take the scout move since it was my first time using them and as a result, they had to stay put. My opponent and I agreed to allow the attack bike to move for its scout.
tyranid warriors fire at tac squad doing pretty much nothing ( this would be their MO all game)
Da 1
Alpha squad charges hive tyrant, alpha squad plus gamma bring the beastie to 1 wound
Tactical squad fires on warriors exploding one
Jumpers move centrally hoping to engage the termigaunt squad
Attk bike turbo boosts, to get the hell outta that area where his friends are being barbequed.
Dread fires on gene 2 killing enough to make them take a leadership test, fail they run off table, (we did this wrong, but we did it consistently wrong, so…)
Last biker dies to termigaunts
Tyranid 2
Doom of malantai arrives in spore pod fires on jumpers killing none, the tactical and jumpers both pass the leadership for the spirit leech by doom of malantai (which gave me a false sense of security)
tyranid warriors fire on tactical squad and kill none
Hive tyrant dies to assault but takes two from alpha squad (gamma and alpha consolidate toward tervigon)
Tervigon births 12 and stops
Newly born tervies fire on tac squad killing 2
Devilguants fire on jumpers, killing two
Da 2
Alpha squad assaults tervigon
Gamma squad fires on birthed termiguants one frag missle scatters hitting belial, wounding him! Gamma then assaults the squad even though they have counter attack and wipes them out (fearless wounds).
Tac squad fires on warriors
Dread fires on doom
Jumpers fire on doom then assault doing nothing
Attk bike fires on devil guants
After assaulting
Tyranid 3
Doom leach essence kills all 3 remaining jumpers and 2 tac makes tac squad break
Devil gaunts charge alpha squad killing all
warriors fire on tac squad killing one
Tervigon consolidates toward objective 3
Da3
Gamma squad move into area terrain and fire on devil guants both missle scatter, thinking that since the missles and storm bolters will never be out of range of the tervigon it would be better to tackle the immediate threat of the gaunts. Probably should have assaulted… ah well
Tac squad regroups and fires on warriors missing
Dread fires on hw missing. Should have tried to assault doom instead, but he was making so many saves and was up to strength 6 I thought I would deal with him later.
Attk bike fires at doom, doing nothing.
Tyrand 4
Doom moves toward tactical then leeches all of them. No cover saves. meaning that the tactical marine, who was singin? He ain’t singin’ no mo’! Doom is now up to strength 10 (counter in pic is wrong) and has 10 wounds, you see where this is going right? attempts to large template blast dread but it scatters for a half strength hit, no damage
Warrior attempts to run for area terrain but falls short
Devilguants spread out and fire on termies killing one
Da 4
Attack bike fires on warrior killing him
Dread fires on doom and then assaults’ (forget to role for the extra attack)
Lone termie (Gaius) fires on tervigon (and finally hits him) and assaults but cant kill him, bringing him to one wound, leading to tied combat.
Tyranid 5
Doom cant hurt the dread due its reduced strength, dread wiffs
Devil guants assault termie, who survives 9 wounds
But tervigon finishes him with three more
Da 5
Dread and doom continue their slapfight
Attk Bike turboboosts to objective six
Right now the game is tied on objectives, cause dread is contesting.
Game continues
Tyr 6
Tervigon tries to limps/runs for objective 3 but cant reach
Devilguants try to grab cover, dread turns doom into wormfood
Da6
Bike turbo boosts to objective 1
dread moves towards tervigon but is out of range
Game ends
Tyranid objectives 1 dark angel objectives 1. Result draw. Its kinda fun having a game like that. i tried out some different units and some paid off some didn't.
Strategy recap
Deployment: i didn' realize that the tyranids would all enter from the board edge so i should have clustered all my troops as centrally as possible. Major oversight! Also
On turn 3 when i moved gamma squad into cover i did the right thing but my threat analysis was lacking. I should have fired on the tervigon and assaulted him he only had two woulds at that point so i prolly would have killed him and maybe had both termies left. Then i may have been able to consolidate back into cover and the devilguants would have lost synapse which meant they still would have attacked but at least they whould have been at initiative 1 and would have been feral and the tervigon would have been dead. Instead i fired frag at the guants. Mathematically krak has a 2/3 chance of hitting and frags have slightly better than 1/3 chance of direct hit. So next time kraks!
I underestimated the doom of malantai and is almost cost me the game. Assaulting the doom with jumpers was also a bad idea it would have been better to use those guys against some termigaunt threat, which was my initial plan and let the dread assault the doom. In addition the jumpers should have used their frag grenades which i forgot. I also should have rapid fired the doom on turn two and left the warriors til later. Also that damn leech essence owned me. Next time I gotta run away from doom of malantai with the tact squad. The other possibility was trying to assault it with the dreadnaught. On turn 3 I might have been able to reach.
Fun game. Mission book adds some spice. I think that the selection of units was good i just didn't use them to best effect.
"Arraway do you have any closing remarks to add to the record?"
"Well Belial was recovered and is undergoing treatment, and the surviving ravenwing was able to signal for reinforcements which may end up saving the planet, but the tyranids have achieved what they wanted which was a slight test of the planets defenses and they just about defeated the entire Dark angels battle group. Whats more, at this time its unclear what the tyranid battle group considering, isn't that supposed to be your area of expertise Bellerophon?"
"Its a difficult enough problem at the best of times Arraway, as you well know. I'm not sure what we can achieve if the reports of the Doom of Malatai presence are confirmed. I have a meeting with the master of librarians following this."
"Well lets not keep him waiting... The Emperor Protects."
Recording ends.
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