Playing Dice with the Universe

Game Eighteen: 1500 Points vs Salamanders Hive Fleet Lyracian Junior Prime w/ Swords, Toxic, Deathspitter & Regen Hive Guard: 2 Broods x3 Zoanthropes x3 Mummy Tervigon w/ Catalysis, TS, AG, Talons Aunty Tervigon w/ Catalysis, TS, AG, Talons Termaguants: 2 Broods x10 Xenomorphs (Genestealers) x10 Tiny the Tyrannofex w/ Rupture Cannon, DL, CS Salamanders Last Stand Boiled Egg - Librarian Dallas and Beta Squads; Five Tacticals in Razorback Bread roll - Alpha-Gravis; Five Tacticals w/ Missile Launcher Bacon - Alpha-Pugnis; Five Man Tactical in Razorback w/ Flamer & Combi-flamer Pancakes - Gamma & Delta Squads; Five Tacticals in Razorback Maple Syrup - Epsilon Devestor Squad w/ Missiles Inedible Rock - Predators XXI & XIX w/ Hvy Bolter Sponsons Inedible Pebble - Two Typhoon Landspeeders Inedible Stones - Armitage & Steel; Two Rifleman Dreadnought Mission: Spearhead, Seize Ground (4 Objectives) File: 798553/excom  Date: 0736998.M41 Subject:...

Concept With the arrival of Mycetic spore pods in the Tyranid Codex it is now possible to field an all reserve army. Every unit has Deep Strike, outflanking or other non-standard methods so that nothing has to join the battlefield from your own table edge. Tactics Everything starts the game in reserves. The majority then arrived turn two with the aim of assaulting turn three. Therefore only giving the opponent a single turn of shooting before they are overwhelmed by all the threats. Core Units You need a Hive Tyrant with Wings, so he can Deep Strike, and Hive Commander for the bonus to reserves. Originally you wanted a pair however the official FAQ stopped Hive Commander stacking with itself so there is no point to a second Tyrant now. Our main anti-tank comes from Zoanthropes and the Spores they are travelling in. We also need some Gargoyles to act as a screening unit for the Tyrant. Two small units gives us some redundancy should one not arrive on time or die on impact...

I am a believer in recycling. It is good for the environment and O.K. for you. I apply the principles to my hobbies as well. When I stop playing one game I tend to sell off toys I will not be needing anyone and use the cash to invest in my new passion. Before Wizkids went bust I played a lot of Heroclix. Whilst the game has been re-released no one seems that interested in it any longer so I sold off my rare and powerful pieces and invested the cash into tanks for my Space Marines. Shopping around on ebay I get tanks for less than £10 each so I was able to get three Predators with just a single Batman figure. I also picked up some spare turrets, Rhinos and Las/Plas Razorbacks. New Biomass for the Hive Mind My friend is not impressed by this years Tyranid Codex, in fact he would rather play Necrons! He gave me about £150 of stuff for nothing, so I gave him some Space Marine tanks I did not want. I got a Hive Tyrant; Carnifex; 6 Warriors; Zoanthrope; a Score of Genestea...

Last weekend was my friend Tyler's 40th birthday. So he got together with Will, James and myself for a day of Warhammer. We booked a couple of tables at our local shop Tabletop Tyrant  . We decided to play the same mission on each table and rolled for random opponents; first round was Dwarves vs Undead and Empire vs Empire. Background From behind the curtain Shareth watched the Baron. Despite being completely in her thrall he still had a commanding presence. She watched as he marshalled the troops and prepared their commanders for tomorrows battle. If only the assassins blade had found its mark! His accursed younger brother had escaped from the castle only a week ago and already men flocked to his banner. For centuries she had plotter her revenge for the death of her father at the families hands. She was not going to let one whelp ruin her plans now. She felt the blood lust rising. She could feel the heartbeats across the room; pounding in her head like a drum. Al...

Goodbye old Friend! My first month at university has been very busy.  Unfortunately before I got a chance to post up my last two Tyranid games my computer decided to fry itself.  I lost the outline write up of both games along with all the photos, and all the software I had installed on the computer.  Since I do not have the time to write them all up again I am just going to post the highlights. Game Sixteen: 1750 Points vs Ultramarines Dawn of War, Seize Ground ( 5 Objectives ) I played double Dakka Tyrant list and Red Orc played his usual Chaplain lead foot marines . Chaplain and assault marines spent a whole turn fighting the Tervigon with no wounds being inflicted before Daddy stomped over and won the battle. On the other side of the table the Terminators were giving me trouble. Six of them killed Junior even with only having Weapon Skill one! Start of turn five saw the marines only having 5 Marines ( 2 Devs w/ ML, 2 Tacs with ML and one with Bolter ) ...

Horde of Zombies! My wife is at work; My 1500 word paper is written; Cassandra is playing with her train set. I actually have a few hours to play with my toy soldiers! Of course by the time I had got myself set up on the table, my assistant has given up playing trains and is trying to hack one of the sprues apart with the pliers... Mantic's Zombies Each sprue has parts for three full zombies and two bits allowing you do make four possible zombies from each sprue. There are 10 sprues in a box although I had an extra one as an appology for a shipping error they made. Mantic had said the zombies would be compatible with their ghoul range so I decided to see about mixing a few ghoul parts into the horde and see if I could make forty zombies from a single box. Sadly the size of the hip joints on the ghouls is not quite the same as the zombies so the parts do not mix very well together. At least the meat cleaver and other spare weapons from the ghouls where useful in addi...

My friends Ultramarine army is still very much a third edition gun-line. Sadly this is not that effective with the latest fifth edition game rules. Ultramarines still have a few nice options, mostly involving tanks, however Space Wolves and Blood Angels do foot armies better. So we are relaunching the marines as the Uppsala Legion, from the planet Schveeden! The Ultramarines @ 1750 Chaplain with Jump Pack leading Assault Marines with Fist & Flamers Terminators x10 with two heavy weapons Dreadnought 3 Tactical Squads with Flamer, Missiles & Fist in Rhinos Devastator Squad with 4 Missile Launchers 11+ Kill Points; 10 Terminators, 46 Marines, 4 Vehicles Two main problems have been hampering the army. First the Dreadnought, being the only armour, just dies too quickly. Secondly they just get raped by psychic powers. The answer to both these problems is to replace the Dreadnought with a Librarian in Terminator armour. We would have to drop an upgrade from one of th...

Today we got to visit Mantic Towers in Nottingham and meet the talent behind the toy solider company. The show was across two floors. The first floor had two gaming tables for learning to play Kings of War as well as tables to meet the sculptor and artists. The second floor was the store together with a couple of display cases. I got to see some work in progress on the Ork army (due out next spring) as well as seeing one of the new plastic-resin Knights and WWII Zombies! Dwarf King Plastic-resin Knight I asked Ronnie about these. Apparently the resin plastic is a half way product between metal and normal plastic. Ten Knights should cost £20 WWII Zombies Warlord plastic nazis with Mantic zombie parts. A new idea they are working on. Lich King raising a minion Ork Warrior - Work in progress Ork boar rider - Work in progress Skeleton Archers These are half metal/half plastic figures to keep the cost down. They are using the same plastic legs as the other u...

The Tyranid Threat Since our first sporadic contacts with Genestealers there have been many misconceptions associated with them. We first thought they were indigenous to the moons of Ymgarl, later this was determined to be in err and subsequently a xenocide campaign was conducted on said moons. When the Tyranid hivefleets came upon the Imperium, the creatures were named in relation to the first notable plant to fall before their advance, the exploratory station of Tyran. – Draco Legion Biomedical Reserch station: NewHallefuss Origin of the Species Most of the Tyranid organisms in the Warhammer 40k universe have been given Latin or Greek names. This makes them sound more exotic and fits with the general use of Latin by the Imperium. I can not really take credit, beyond compilation, for this etymology as it is all taken from other websites, particually Wiktionary. Biovore – This suffix comes from the Latin vorare (to devour), and is used to form nouns indicating what kind of...

I actually enjoy doing mathematical analysis to see how efficient different units are. Dice can be fickle but the more dice you roll should bring you closer to the mean. Not that this helps my constantly under-performing Tervigon. This page is intended as a mathematical reference for Tyranid players and I shall be adding more analysis (and formatting) later. Calculus for Hive Tyrants Pythagoras' Theorem will help with guessing ranges but beyond that maths will not win you games. What it will do is help you to know what performance to expect from your army. Of course knowing that your Hive Guard should kill three Rhinos in a six turn game does not help if they underperform for the first three turns. Tyanid Ranged Anti-Tank Here is the chance each unit has of opening a tin can. I have calculated the probability of dealing with armour in a single shooting phase. I have chosen to display this as a percent since 66% reads much better than 0.66. First three columns are the...