I figured I would split my nerdiness off into a seperate blog

I'm a longtime Warhammer fantasy player who decided to make the jump back into 40k recently (recently meaning the end of November, and by back I mean "I played some in 3rd edition".) and I thought it would be fun to keep track of my various victories, defeats, and observations.

First things first-- my army. I chose the Tyranids for a few different reasons: I love their fluff, I like the look of most of their units, and I'm a big fan of melee combat. (It also helps that the whole "crazy alien creature" look hides the worst of my painting mistakes.) Most rookies go for the Space Marines but I thought I would be a bit different by saving them for my second army...

Crappy pictures link: Hooray Nids!

I'm living in the middle of a gaming black hole, so I was really pleased to find two other guys in the area on a forum who have a dedicated table set up in their basement. After the requisite jokes about rubbing lotion on skin and such I went over and met Jason and Bo who were both very nice, funny, and not serial killers. (You can tell this because I'm still alive and I am also still in possession of my epidermis.)

As a ghetto battle report (without pictures, as I do not own a digital camera and was far too busy stumbling along trying to play to take any even if I did own one) I present the following:

My list:
Warrior Prime with boneswords, deathspitter, regen, toxin sacs
2 Hive Guard
2 Zoanthropes (seperate units)
5 warriors-- 4 with deathspitters, 1 barbed strangler, scything talons
12 Genestealers with toxin sacs (outflanked)
2x20 Hormagaunts with adrenal glands and toxin sacs
21 Termagants
Trygon Prime with adrenal gland and regen

Jason is also a Tyranid player (ironic that I chose a less popular army and find someone else in the middle of nowhere who did the same)
His list:
Hive Tyrant with lashwhip and bonesword, heavy venom cannon, hive commander
2 Tyrant Guard
Zoanthrope
2 Hive Guard
3 Warriors-- two with deathspitters, one with barbed strangler
8 Genestealers with Broodlord (outflanked)
12 Hormagaunts (outflanked using hive commander)
2x 14 Termagants
Trygon Prime with adrenal gland (deepstrike)
Trygon with adrenal gland
Biovore

Set up: 6 pieces of terrain, two woods, a ruins, two hills, and a small church.
Mission: seize ground with 4 objectives
Deployment: Spearhead (which really screwed me up since I am still stuck in pitched battle mode from playing fantasy for so long)

Highlights:
Jason had the first turn and he used it well, lots of shooting dropped one unit of ubergaunts down to 10 models, a few other gaunts were picked off here and there. Biovores are nasty against other Nids! My first turn was marked by poor shooting but saw the start of close combat, where the surviving 10 ubergaunts charged in and wiped out his regular trygon on the charge (30 poisoned attacks!).

The following rounds are a bit of a blur-- units from both sides would charge in, wipe something out, then get shot to pieces. My second unit of unbergaunts were charged by his Tyrant and guards-- and managed to hold them up long enough for my Trygon to finish him off. My Trygon in turn was killed by his second Trygon who was then shot up and killed in close combat by my warriors. Zoans and Warriors from both sides were ID'd by each others Hive Guard, and his Genestealers outflanked in and wiped out my blob of Termagaunts... leaving them open to eat deathspitters and the charge of my own Stealers who outflanked in behind.

By turn 5 I still had my prime and one warrior sitting on an objective, one Zoan, my Hive Guard, and about 8 Stealers on the way to finish off his last real unit. Jason had his Hormagaunts sitting in a forest on an objective, and 4 Termagaunts a few inches out from my Warriors. I took a calculated risk in sending my stealers off the objective they had been sitting on to finish off his Hive Guard, but it didn't pay off-- at the end of the turn we rolled a 1 to finish the game and after a quick measuring Jason had one Termagant barely within 3 inches to contest my Warriors objective.

I really like my glass hammer ubergaunts,they were by far my favorite unit to watch in action. Nothing really let me down outside of my Zoans (who where sitting in SOTW and rarely got anything off). My next purchase will definitely be a Tyrant and Guards, they look great and offer up some really good buffs.

All in all, it was the most fun I've had in awhile with a game. I made quite a few errors, especially in my deployment, but I was surprised at how close I managed to keep it. Crazy power swings happened every turn and all three of us were laughing the entire time. We're supposed to get together again in a few days and I'll have a chance to take on Bo's Imp Guard. I'll try to keep notes and give a better report.