Kill Team - Ad Mech versus Tyranids

I went down to Tigers-King‘s to play a game of Kill Team (and to collect the rules). I prepped two teams - Space Marines Intercession (mix of assault and normal) and an Ad Mech Hunter Clade with a mix of Skitari Rangers/Vanguard and Sicarian Ruststalkers/Infiltrators to face Tiger-King’s Tyranids. I used BattleScribe to get the team roster done - now this was useful, but I couldn’t get it to print in a useful way (I think the default set are US letter rather than A4 Amy couldn’t work out how to change them on the iPad).

We were fighting over a crowded kill zone which was beautifully painted. We decided not to used tac-ops cards as it was both of ours 3rd game (and I’d hadn’t played for a long time). We did the scouting phase and I won the initiative.

The starting point for the half the Ad Mech - the other half moved forward into position but didn’t have any targets and were too far away from any objectives to make it worth using a dash action. Tiger-king’s terrain was also too high for my troops to get on to the vantage points in one turn with move/dash actions (which meant neither of us used it). I also discovered at this point that the Tyranids shooting was rather dangerous - However I manage the high point of the game with 3 critical saves - much to Tiger-kings chagrin. Unfortunately he took out my infiltrator in one shot … the Ad Mech with 7 to 10 wounds seemed a little fragile. But it was 1 all for victory points at the end of the turn.

The Tyranids advance into a moderately effective fire storm … I move the ruststalkers over to counter the genestealers in melee. The nasty ‘Nids shooting was taking out the numerical advantage the Ad Mech rather quickly. 

All 3 of the Vanguard were dead … and annoyingly the Tyranids had a counter to the Rad-saturated count as injured. I managed to kill a couple of genestealers, but virtually all of my troops were now injured - either from the shooting or melee - the damage was usually fatal for the skitari. However the Transuranic Arquebus, was being pretty effective, but not enough to actually kill a ‘Nid outright. But I was leading 3-2.

The brood lord and warrior having cleared out the Ad Mech left flank - at this point I think I had 4 skitari rangers left - but going into the final round it was all square 4 all in victory points. I also remembered to start looking at the tactical ploys for the Ad Mech. 

The final round with my key to victory or drawing was to hold the objective under the platform - but unfortunately the skitari was turned to red mist. This meant that at the end I lost 5 - 6. I had  used command points to heal wounds on 3 warriors, as this mitigated the injured penalties. My leader and Arc gunner were killed - which were the only fighter which could use overwatch - a downside of the Transuranic Arquebus is that it is unwieldy. So I ended the game with just one survivor … Tiger-King and his Tyranids had given me a good beating. 

An enjoyable game - which we have to play again soon. 

The poor run of form in either version of kill team continues for the Ad Mech - can’t be anything to do the command of the team ...

Probably the last game before Christmas - I wonder what Santa will bring. 

Morts