Space Marines Vs. Tyranids.

Preface: Shauns Marines are now all fully painted, and look great. This was his unofficial first game, we had a previous one where he was learning the rules. With some epic moments involving a Captain and a Broodlord =D

Telion moved through the brush. The forest gave cover to his scouts. They had encountered the Tyranid threat earlier, outside the city. The bugs were sticking to the forests, which were now growing wild and out of control. Telion locked a round into his bolt rifle. His scouts were setting up an over watch, keeping an eye on the rest of the forces as they moved forward.

Reports came in that a radar station had been overwhelmed by the bugs, and they were pushing out of the forest more so every day. The Marine librarians had been collecting data. Studying the dna and behaviour patterns of the Tyranids. They managed to simulate an organic plant in some shelled out ruins, this would be the sweetest bait, but the Marine revenge would be sweeter. The Captain in charge of the operations, a good man and veteran of the previous conflict, held a squad near the organic pile, hoping to exact a toll for fall friends. A librarian moved forward with a forward tactical squad to intercept any bugs coming for the resources, and maybe sneak around and take back the radar station. It would be tough, but the Dreadnought that was lumbering beside them would make the task easier. Of course, the terminators were in reserve, to make a final push for the station.

The bugs behaved exactly as expected. They began to pile out of the radar station, already beginning to look over run with spores and digestion pools full of bioacid. Great swathes of gaunts ran forward, screeching and chittering, being driven forward by the iron will of the hive mind. They seemed different, however. They seemed to be impatient. The librarians were too informed from their research, the Tyranids were coming at full pace. Raveners burst out of the ground from behind a hill, and began to slither forward, as endless waves of gaunts lept and sprang forward. Warriors, with limbs formed into weapons began firing at the Dreadnought. Venom crystals impacted hard, but dented the facade of the walking coffin. Then the minds of the Marines filled with a scream. A hive Tryant with an escort of tyrant guard stepped from the station, and fired more venom crystals towards the dreadnought. The Marines stuck by their research though, and were well out of range.

Telion gave the order over his comm link: "FIRE!" Missiles, Lascannons, Bolters and Sniper rounds errupted from everywhere. The first rank of gaunts was almost cut down, as missiles impacted into the center of the brood, and into the radar station itself. Telion ordered his scouts to focus their fire on the creatures driving the swarm forward. The snipers struck true, inflicting serious wounds on the warriors, but the swarm continued. Telion could see every inch of the battlefield. The plan was working! It was working to great effect. It would be rough, but the original idea should succeed. Draw the bugs out, and then sneak around behind with terminators and scouts, and claim the radar base. He shot a few more rounds into the warriors driving everyone forward, landing more hits into the brood, his shells impacted the soft forest floor with a statisfying "thud."

The Space Marine Librarian kept his unit calm. Telling them to pour on the fire, shredding gaunt after gaunt with bolter fire. The unit worked in perfect unison, shooting, reloading and firing at the same time, working as a team. The gaunts drew closer, more rounds fired, more gaunts fell, and yet they still game. Smoke trails of missile launchers arched over head, as more explosives landed into the center of their mass target. The gaunts continued forward. The librarian blinked, he could see the events unfold before they happened. He counted all the clips for the bolters drop to the ground in unison. The gaunts lept forward and slammed into the group with mindless vigor.

The Captain took a look at the battle ahead of him. He could see the Dreadnoguht shudder with impacts, but it appeared to still be turning out an impressive rate of fire from it's stormbolter. "Just a little closer," he tought. "Then you can see what that thing is packing." The Marines readied more missiles for firing. A marine went to an ammo crate resting against the side of the ruined building. The wood creaked as he opened it, he reached down to grab more rockets, when green ooze dripped down onto it, and began to sizzle the metal casing. He looked up, and saw that he was face to face with a genestealer. It's red, snake like tongue, licking the air around itself. It's acidic green saliva burning into the rubble. Before he could yell a warning, they flowed over the wall and swarmed him, ripping him to shreds, like his armour was made of cray paper.

Telions ear erupted with screams of horror. The Bugs pulled something he wasn't expecting. They used their own trick against them, damnit! He turned his attention back to their fortifications, and could see his fellow Marines being torn down by the wave of Genestealers. The larger than life silhouette of the Captain raged on in the melee. Cleaving and chopping genestealers down, as they rended apart the bodies of his commrade. A scout tried to line up a shot at a genestealer clawing at the back of the captain. Telion held his rifle, and shook his head. "There's a good chance you'll hinder the captains fight. He's done this before, let him exact his revenge, on his own terms." His brow furrowed. "We have bigger concerns at the moment, focus your fire the synapse. The sooner those can be brought down, the sooner we can start reclaiming a section of our planet." The scout nodded. Another volley of sniper fire rang from the forest, and impacted into the warriors. Telion lined up two shots of his own, and put two rounds through the skulls of two warriors. They twichted and bled green bioacid as they fell dead to the ground.

The pyschic screamed lessened a bit for the Marines. The librarian could feel a part of the will waiver, this was his chance. The hormagaunts felt it as well, as they paused to realign themselves. The Marines took the iniative and struck forward driving the Hormagaunts back. The Hive Mind was not as strong as it was before, and the Hormagaunts reverted back to their genetic instincts, and fled from the Marines. The Marines let up a giant cheer, it was cut short. The Librarian focused his mind and used a warp vortex to transport his brother in arms to a safer location, and closer to the captain, who was now the only marine left in a swarm of genestealers.

More gaunts arrived and began to skitter across the ruins of an old bunker, there was a new sound that accompained them. The serpent like raveners began to pull ahead, with celerity. They were trying to intercept the Marines and Dreadnoguht before they could return fire. They were not fast enough. The hormagaunts ran back into the powerful control of the hive mind. Their simple minds being forced forward again, cause da ripple in the swarm and they stopped for a brief moment. The Librarian saw it as his only chance, and screamed the command to open fire. And open fire, they did! The Marines unleashed a salve of shots into the hormagaunts, mowing down rank after rank, then the air began to smell of ozone, as a small spark ignited fuel and heavy flame throwers belched fire forward into the ranks of gaunts, incinerating the brood into a pile of ash and ooze.

The Hive Tyrant roared and fire two more salvos of poison crystals into the dreadnought. The venom cannon began cracnk and dent the armour, but the Marines were ready and layered it on thick. The Dreadnougth continued to rumble. The three raveners impacted violently into the side of the walking tomb. Agile and hissing, their claws raked into it's side, and began to rend the metal from walker. Ripping it's armoured fist, off the side of the hull; trying to render it defenseless. The dreadnought had more than just powerfists, and turned to counter the serpent nightmares. The plan was still, somewhat, intact, hold your ground! The synapse creatures were lagging behind, and could not impose their directive upon the raveners. Hissing, and seeing one ravener crushed under the foot of the dreadnought, the other snakes sensed fear and began to tunnel into the earth to escape. The dreadnought crushed the fleeing snakes, burning the remains into char.

The librarian looked over the battle field, there was still a giant swarm of gaunts running forward, and these had a behemoth of a hive tyrant whipping them forward. He summoned a warp vortex around his men again, and they appeared behind the swarm. "Keep to the plan," he thought to himself. He tried to look into the forrested areas, to spot Telion, to see how he was doing. "Where are those Terminators, now's our chance!" He unleashed a pyschic wave of fire and began to incinerate the gaunts from behind. They turned to face the new threat behind them, when more sniper fire pounded into their other side, a cross fire!

Telion looked through his binoculars, to see how the captain was doing, his armour was being torn off his body, but the pile of genestealers was growing. He did not know how this was going to end. The Captain had losses to avenge, he remembered the story of the broodlord ambushing the Captains men, leaving only one and the Captain himself. He could understand the frustration and anger, and hoped the captain would find peace before he found death. Telion leaned back against a tree, to line another shot up onto the hive tyrant. Then he felt something on his shoulder, a tendril began to crawl down from the tree, and slowly wrap around his neck. He spun around, as the lictor peeled itself off the trunk of the tree and lept down at Sgt. Telion. The impact was was brutal. He could feel his teeth rattle. The lictor made a deep clicking sound, and slashed at him with it's claws. He held up his rifle in defense as it got shredded into pieces of scrap. Telion turned to warn his men, but his back lit up in a burning sensation, the creature had ripped into his thigh, he spun and saw his blood pouring onto the forest floor. He tried to reach for his pistol, but the lictor raked it's claws across the face of Telion bringing him down. The scouts screamed in terror and anger, some fired at the predator, others ran at it with combat knives drawn. The combined sniper fire and close combat brought the creature down, but its work had already been done.

The Terminators finally teleported in behind enemy lines. They began to open fire on the hive tyrant, shells and rounds bouncing off it's thick armour. It's tyrant guard seemed to jump unconciously into the path of bullets, deflecting them without realizing it. The Librarian had heard the attack on Telion over the comm link, and could see the captain still waist deep in genestealers. Cooler heads had to prevail. We could not lose another hero today. He tapped his fingers to his ear, and called for the forces to fall back, fall back to the main fortifications back in the city. They would not get their radar station back today, and a lot had been learned. That knowledge, unfortunately, came at a high cost.

Final Score: Space Marines -0 Tyranids -0

It was a great came. The big turning point was me running my hormagaunts out of synapse range, and then Waterman unloading on a brood of 20 and just pasting them with rapid fire and twin linked heavy flamers. It was great fun, and it looked awesome with painted dudes =)