Trucidos Game 1 Report

I faced off against Chris's Tyranid's for the first game of our Trucidos 40k Campaign. Here is the tale of my inglorious defeat...


Here's the table. Playing on a 4x4 table turned out to be much smaller than it appeared, especially with objectives that couldn't be closer than 12" from a table edge or 12" from each other. Fortunately, we only rolled three. Two small objectives have been placed, and the third rests on the lower tree stump, and was placed below it. Chris advanced from the bottom right corner, and I advanced from the top right.

My great plan was to steadily advance against the two nearest objectives and try to at least take one and contest the other. My right squad was simply 10 Necrons, which I thought would take their objective, and my left squad was 10 Necrons with the Lord equipped with a Warscythe for close combat and a Phase Shield (I think, 4+ Invulnerable Save). I expected the Left squad to get stuck into combat and contest the second objective. The last picture here shows the Right squad absolutely pasting Chris's Termagants off their intended objective. At this point I'm thinking I have this game in the bag.

Unfortunately, the Left squad just wasn't doing quite as well. Chris's biovore kept up a steady rain of frag spore mines from the corner of the board (until Chris forgot about him starting in turn 4, I think), causing a wound on my Lord in the first turn of the game. He then charged the squad with his hormagaunts. The squad shot the hormagaunts up pretty well, but about four of them managed to get into close combat. My close combat Lord whiffed badly in close combat every turn. They battled the hormagaunts for two or three turns, clearing them out just in time to be charged by a swarm of rippers which tied them up easily for the rest of the game. They might have been able to do something more near the end of the game, but of course their last combat round left a single ripper sward with a single wound.

"No, damn you! We should be over there! OVER THERE!!"

Then, the squad I had pasted reappeared at Chris's table edge, and at this point I figured there was no way for me to win on objectives with only one squad effective. The Right squad then advanced across the table at his warrior HQ. Again, turn 5, I blasted away, but left one warrior with one wound. Another turn and maybe I could have pulled it out, but with the variable game lengths, the game ended after turn 5.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. The objectives and the random game length rules are very arbitrary and may not seem to match the "fluff" of your army BUT they get you moving and interacting and simply make the game more fun. In a way, they add an amount of tension that I find I greatly enjoy, kind of like my favorite Piquet rules. They do it differently, but the evoke a similar nail-biting suspense and uncertainty that many games lack.