So, with Warren's End quickly becoming a radioactive wasteland and the civilians running for their lives we thought we'd try the special mission from the Leviathan book.
Each civilians rescued is 6 points to the imperials, Each civilians harvest or killed by the wave is 6 points to the tyranids.
The furthest civilian group is essentially screwed. The closest one is essentially rescued. The middle one is the key here. The mission also adds kill points (1 for each unit destroyed). We decided before the day that troops would not count as kill points as it makes it too hard for Tyranids to win... or so we thought.
Forces: Rottimus' Black Scorpions - 1850 pts
Eivind NomNom Tyranids - 1850 pts
Tan chimeras represent the civilian transports
Turn 1
We deployed!
I chose an army with some serious firepower and 5 dreadnoughts with heavy flamers. I'd be using them to stem the flow whilst trying to evacuate the civvies.
Eivind had taken the endless swarm formation, meaning an endless wave of troops coming my way. With the deployment the way it is, Eivind would be a mere 9 inches away from me on either side. My only hope would be kill key units fast and tie up the nasty ones.
We deployed as pictured. Eivind has the special warlord trait where he can seize the initiative on a 5 or a 6. He seized the initiative! The furthest civilian transport was instantly killed by genetealers as they were closer. Everything got to close in very fast before the civilians even got to move (they only move 2d6 in MY movment phase). In the assault phase Eivind's super fast hormagaunts would already be assaulting me this turn.
With some shooting here and there removing two hull points and a scout being killed. Eivind had won the game at the end of his first turn. Victory for the Tyranids!
Conclusion!
Well, that was that fastest game of 40k ever. Basically the seize of the initiative made it impossible to win. The fact that civilians move in MY turn, not Eivinds means he got VERY close with his turn as the distances are so small. With swarms of cheap troops there was nothing I could do to respond. The civilians move directly away from the tyranids if they are closer. Some hormogaunts got in between my units and the middle civilians went the wrong direction = Victory for tyranids.
He gained 6 pts for killing the furthest one away, and the middle one got swamped immediately too. The result was inevitable. If I managed to get the easiest civilian off the table, it would be 12-6. If I killed ALL his units that weren't troops I could only manage a maximum of 6 extra points. So....12 -12
We played on a bit just to mess around, we agreed that troops not giving kill points was a mistake.A pretty sucky game as it was over literally within 10 minutes. I had my entire army left on the table, and quite a bit of power too, tabling my opponent would maybe have been possible at a stretch but with 'endless swarm' that's impossible...
We agreed that parts of the mission seem weird and we'll play again soon but with a normal mission
