Clawed Fury

Clawed Fury

Overlord Mimikrin of Azhera led six wraiths, six tomb blades and the Annihilation Barges NNV Torrent of Fire, NNV Thunderbolt and NNV Malicious against Tyranids on Elesia IV. The barges deployed across the centre with wraiths and tomb blades dispersed throughout the formation.

The Overlord himself was aboard the Night Scythe NNV Bane of Chaos with a squad of deathmarks and a cryptek, in reserve with them, the NNV Relentless, also packed with deathmarks and the empty Night Scythe NNV Cultured Elegance. In all his force was 1500 strong.

Our initial objectives were to break enemy morale, seize any fortifications and seize the central objective. In our starting position we already held the two westernmost objectives and the southern central objective. The remaining two objectives were in or close to the eastern deployment zone where the Tyranid horde gathered, a sea of termagants and hormagaunts.

A huge flying hive tyrant faced our left, two zoanthropes were central and to the right, two squads of warriors added strength to the lines and a venomthrope was centre left. Flying in on the right, a hive crone threatened the southern end of our lines. Hiding in the rear on the enemy left: their blind artillery support. An exocrine lumbered along on the northern flank of the enemy.

The horde opened fire and advanced en masse: Two of our tomb blades were destroyed immediately, first blood to the enemy, the Torrent of Fire took a glancing hit, but our barges destroyed hormagaunts in the centre that had moved to take the central objective and two of our wraiths assaulted and destroyed the survivors, taking the objective. Another wraith was killed however when the westernmost objective exploded with tremendous force.

The enemy had achieved one of its objectives through holding the south eastern objective, so the initial score was one – two. Another hormagaunt unit arrived to make up for the early losses, the enemy resources seemed endless. We changed objectives: Now we prioritised the south western objective that had just exploded and targeted enemy monstrous creatures and fliers.

The Torrent of Fire was now wrecked by the enemy hive tyrant, but spore mines that fell close to the Thunderbolt were destroyed by misplaced friendly fire. Assaulting termagants attacked our southern tomb blades, destroying one and a wraith moved to assist. The two wraiths in the centre were destroyed by concentrated fire from many enemy units.

The Relentless arrived from reserve and dropped its deathmarks on our left flank where they engaged enemy warriors at a range that was longer than ideal. At the end of the second round of fighting we had held the south western objective with a pair of tomb blades, but the enemy counter scored for identification of all objectives bringing the score to two – three.

We now chose to focus on the North West objective, one we already held with a wraith. Unknown to us, the Tyranids chose the same. They moved termagants towards it and assaulted, but our wraith put up a strong defence, killing several attackers.

The enemy dropped spore mines behind our deathmarks and targeted the squad inflicting multiple casualties. The Malicious took a glancing hit and more seriously the Relentless was hit twice and lost her destructor systems, forcing her to withdraw.

The Bane of Chaos now arrived in the centre, dropping its passengers who marked the exocrine, however for the moment both deathmark squads concentrated their fire on finishing off the northern warrior squad. The tomb blade in the southern assault was now lost and lone wraiths were locked in combat with assaulting termagants north and south.

The Tyranids held the North West objective by virtue of their troops’ proximity, we chose a new objective targeting the central objective, whilst the Tyranids targeted our fliers. With us failing to score the new position was two – four against us.

The Hive creatures quickly achieved their new objective, shooting down the Bane of Chaos with a vector strike and a lot of other shots from the Hive tyrant. Our deathmarks took heavy losses on the left before regenerating; they were then assaulted by spore mines and termagants and unbelievably broke and were destroyed.

Our other deathmark squad also took concentrated fire and only one survived as Mimikrin and the cryptek fell too. On the left our wraith was victorious and held the North West objective. To the south though the other wraith fell, and our last tomb blade was also destroyed in the centre after it had destroyed the venomthrope. Our barges and the newly arrived Cultured Elegance shot down the enemy Hive Crone.

At the end of the fourth turn we had destroyed a flier and held the North West objective, the enemy had destroyed a flier and our warlord. Four six then the score at this point. Our new objectives were to hold the North West and South west objectives; the enemy had the North East objective and use of psychic powers as targets.

The Relentless reappeared from reserve for us but could do little with no operational weapons. Termagents finished off the last deathmark. The Malicious managed to clear the South west objective of the termagants but the Cultured Elegance failed to shoot down the Hive Tyrant with some dreadful gunnery. The score moved to six – nine at this point.

The Thunderbolt was now destroyed by the hive tyrant and termagants swarmed over objective south west. More tried to wrest the North West objective from our wraith but it destroyed the attackers to continue to hold. The Cultured Elegance though damaged now destroyed the Hive tyrant warlord which had been weakened by earlier psychic mishaps.

The enemy had achieved three objectives though including linebreaker as the action now broke off though we ended with a score of eight; the enemy had achieved thirteen in total, including all secondaries.

At the end our rallied forces amounted to just 325, a loss rate approaching 80%. The Relentless, Malicious and Cultured Elegance were all damaged, in particular the Relentless with no weapons, plus the lone wraith. The enemy on the other hand had lost no more than 45% of its strength and was in a clearly dominant position, arguably throughout the engagement.


14.6.14