Skirmish in the jungle

My new warband of lizardmen faces Marco Colombo and his followers in the depths of the jungle

The battlefield is centered around a temple of Sotek and a spawning pool. We rolled for the weather and the scenario, the result was windy and "skirmish in the jungle": victory to the one that routs the other first, all movement is reduced at -1, shooting suffers -2 and all weapons range is at - 10cmt.

The new warband is composed by two sauruses with spear, shield and helmet, two skinks with shortbow and repitle venom, one skink with shortbow, two skink braves with shortbow, a saurus brave with shield, spear and helmet and a skink priest with shortbow,

The lizardmen deploy some skinks hidden inside some bushes

With all the sauruses and the skink priest concentrated in the left flank

Colombo's tileans deploy also behind cover

Mixing shooters with hand to hand specialists

Avanti men!

The tileans seize the first turn and advance tentatively onwards

The sauruses and the priest run and hide behind cover

In the center, the skinks move and hide to lure the tileans forward since the range of their shortbows is outmatched by the human weapons

In the right flank, a tilean hound faces a lone skink

The first encounters, a quicksand fails to drag down a crossbowman without armour

In the tilean second turn, the hound discovers the skink hiding behind the bushes

The tileans in the center advance against the hidden skinks

In the lizardmen turn, the skinks move out from cover to shot over the spawning pool, stunning a halberdier

While the sauruses run into Colombo's men, the saurus hero uses the priest's spell to move 10cmt more and close in with Colombo himself

The lone skink runs from the hound and into the jungle

In the shooting phase, the priest kills a halberdier with a well placed arrow

In the encounters phase the saurus hero manages to survive the quicksand wich would have swallowed him with a  4+

Colombo fails a panic test from a native course and runs away trough the jungle

In the tilean turn, a hero and a halberdier charge the saurus but all three fail to wound

While a crossbowman stuns a skink over the pool, the hound move towards the center

In the lizardmen turn a skink finishes off the stunned halberdier

The lone skink shots at extreme range against the hound, but fails to wound

The remaining sauruses charge the tileans

Killing the hero

And stunning a crossbowman

With a rout test in the horitzon, the tilean player spends his two last encounter points, but the native curse has no effect upon the saurus (mainly because it's his race who putted the heads on the spikes in the first place!)

However a carnivorous plant stuns the hound

The tileans failed their rout test and lost the skirmish

And there was great rejoicing!

In the post battle sequence, the tileans lost a halberdier henchmen whose body was promptly offered to the gods, they did not gain any new skills, the income was of 35 GC.
The lizardmen had some more luck, finding 2 treasures / 50 GC, the artifact blood sword wich the saurus brave took and one of the skinks even advanced to hero!

Any conclusion to the battle? if you have a bad streak with a warband better pick a new one as overpowered és possible!

First battle of mutant ridge

 The battered titans of Mannheim maniple have been ambushed by a full force of biotitans, with the ods against them will they be able to weather the storm to come?

 The defenders deploy first with the attackers in reserve

 The first hierodule appears and hides behind the fuel silos

 In the third turn, most of the tyranid force appears an gets behind cover

 The titans march to bypass the siloes and the energy weapon of one kills an already damaged hierodule.

 The biotitans move out from cover and charge against the warlords

 Imperius Galgamech opens up with devastating effects: one vortex missile kills the foremost hierodule

 Another, already wounded, falls to the melta cannon

 And yet another one is finished by the second vortex missile.

 The remaining titans furiously charge against the legio metallica

 Imperius Galgamech is severely crippled by shots from a dominatrix hiding behind an ash dune after its shields have been burned by the hierophant's biocannons

And is destroyed after losing the combat

 In the background, Imperius Quintus smashed the head of the charging hierodule with his combat fist.

And so ends the battle, with a crushing defeat for the tyranids.

In the experience phase, Imperius Quinus advanced from experienced to veteran and gained the upgrade "devotional bell" (a copy o fhte bell of the lost souls perhaps?) wich makes him into a psyker granting a +1 in hand to hand.

 After losing the battle the swarm retreated. In the imperial fourth turn nobody moved.

In the tyranid turn, swarms secundus and primus moved to consolidate over cerberan primus hive and tertius swarm moved to give battle to maniple Mannheim again.

The campaign has lasted four turns and four battles, and the victors are the tyranids with three objectives (hives primus, secundus ans the refinery) against the imperials two (the mining complex and the water plant). The outcome of the second battle of mutant ridge won't affect the outcome of the campaign.

More epic flags

Rearguard action at Malcador Bridge

 Our epic 40k campaign goes on, in the legio Metallica turn 2 the titans moved south to secure the mining complex and the water processing plant.

In the tyranid turn the primus swarm and the tertius joined together near hive primus to replenish the losses that primus had suffered in the previous battle with fresh biotitans from tertius.

In the third turn, princeps Goplin led his titan maniple to challenge the secundus swarm near Malcador bridge. We rolled for the battle and the result was "attack at dawn": the defender (the tyranids) has to deploy the detachments in reserve rolling a 1-2 for them, the defender places two objective counters, while the attacker places four, all objectives must be in the defender's half of the board.

The setup was the next: a mine dominated the right with the attackers's objectives placed close to it,  an ash dune gave cover in the tyranid deployment zone, while an ash waste was placed in the left with the defender's objectives in a remote corner of the table. The objeectives were marked with smooth black stones. The tyranids rolled badly in the deployment and just one hierodule appeared, while the legio deployed all the maniple's strenghth of three warlords and an imperator.

 Metallica got the initiative and advanced to get in range. In the second turn, the tyranids rolled spectacularly in the reserve table and all but one of their biotitans appeared.

 A lone hierodule sprints ahead of his brethen towards the objectives.

 While another two take the defender's objectives

 The concentrated fire of two hierodules and two dominatrices brings down the warlord Imperius Necator (in the centre)

 The engines of Metallica rumble forward intent on vengeance

 The forward hierodule is killed by two vortex missiles from Imperius Defensor

 And another one by the imperator Last light

 The dominatrices advance and open fire, but the titan's void shields absorb all damage

 The titans maintain positon and keep on with the bombardment, the dominatrices energy shield takes the brunt of some damage

 A dominatrix engages Imperius Ferratus in close combat to prevent it from reaching the objectives in the left flank

 The imperator and Imperius Defensor capture an objective each in the last turn, while a last chance charge by the latecomer biotitan fails to destroy the imperator

With two objectives captured by each side, the battle becomes a draw.
In the campaign phase, all the Metallica titans got upgrades: the imperator will ignore the first critical, Imperius Defensor got scape pods for his crew, wich means that despite being destroyed, their experience can be used by another engine with a 2+, and Imperius Ferratus got overwatch for its melta cannon.
The tyranids also got some advances, two hierodules will ignore the first critical. and another one became a psyker, the dominatrix got zero advances for negative modifiers in the experience table due to being below half damage.

Since the battle is a draw, the attacker deploys to an adjaçent tile decided by the defender. The legio keeps on moving advancing the Mannheim maniple north.

In the tyranid third turn, the secundus swarm moves into cover behind the Malcador bridge, and the primus swarm attacks the Mannheim maniple. In the next battle, the two warlords of the maniple will have to face no less than seven biotitans! will they held on against supperior odds or will they be destroyed leaving wide open the water plant? discover it in our next report.