Map Campaign pt1

One of my local shops (Empire Games in Mesa, AZ) is running a map based campaign/escalation league for the next couple months. The map updates weekly on Sunday as a result of battles that take place over the course of the week. I'm playing for the Xenos team, and there are also Imperial, Marines, and Chaos teams... and the one Tyranid player is all by himself. So far it looks pretty awesome, and I've participated in two battles as of this post.

That's the map.

The first game was... interesting. Context: Week One is Unbound, 500 points, No Flyers, No Super Heavy/Gargantuan, and one Monstrous Creature. My list was two 6 man Stealth Teams with two FusionLock suits, and two Pathfinder teams one 5 man, one 4 man. I faced off versus the Nids in a skirmish for neutral territory. Basically, when you attack neutral hexes you can face off against anyone, and if you win, you now own the hex, if you lose your attack failed, and you have to try again later. Fluffwise, my army was wandering around scouting when the Nids attacked and I tried to thwart their advance... and failed.

The Nids had a Stone Crusher Carnifex leading a 3 strong squad of Warriors and a bunch of little Termagants skittering around doing whatnot. The outset of the battle had my vanguard holed up in a large ruin waiting to ambush them under the cover of darkness, unfortunately, they managed to see my Pathfinders and their markers shining in the darkness and retaliated with some sort of splash Bioplasma. Basically I had multiple units in close proximity on different levels of the ruin, and I found out very quickly that they changed the way that worked in 7th to hit EVERYONE under the template. No matter what floor or how well covered by the floor above them they are. So that was a thing. Also, I totally forgot for some reason that burst cannons (despite using them in EVERY SINGLE LIST I've run ever...) have 4 shots each rather than 3, which doesn't seem like a big deal but it is literally a quarter of my firepower. Long story short, my Pathfinders were melted in Bioplasma and my Stealth Teams got noms'd on my the Carnifex.

My second game was against the Imperial Guard who were attacking a Mountain Pass that the Xenos team controlled. I was nominated to defend, and defend I did. My list for this match contained two 4 man Pathfinder squads, two three man Stealth teams (do you see a pattern yet?) and a XV109 Y'vahra leading. The Guard player had three squads of guardsmen in Chimera and a Command squad with Master of Ordinance on foot. Two of the Chimera squads had an autocannon team and flamer, one of them was some kind of junior command squad with a medic and heavy flamer. We rolled for The Relic mission, which I basically used to bait my opponent into kill range with everything. The XV109 did incredible work, and I kind of felt guilty crushing my opponent so mightily, but I refuse to relinquish territory if I can help it. He was an excellent sport, and he put up a fight against insurmountable odds.

I look forward to next week and the adventures in 40k that await me.

Until next time, Vaya con Dios,
Timothy