The Hive Fleet of Tyranids launched a planetary assault and ravaged the hive. One splinter force consisted of a horrifying Hive Tyrant, leading two broods of Termagaunts, a Carnifex, a Tyranid Warrior Prime, 3 Tyranid Warriors, a Ravenor swarm and a Maleceptor. They crashed into the steel lines of the Draconians, a column of Leman Russ tanks facing them with plasma cannons and las. A single retainer from House Yato accompanied them, piloting an Armiger Warglaive.
Alas, despite taking down the Maleceptor, they were annihilated by the ravenous Tyranid swarms. Hilariously enough, the Hive Tyrant killed himself through perils of the warp by rolling 2 1s and then 2 6s after a Command reroll. To add insult to injury, his smite only did 1 mortal wound to his Leman Russ tank target when rolling the D6 and...yeah. Well, at least he took out the Armiger Warglaive in combat, and admittedly, the Armiger Warglaive's meltagun did a ton of damage to him (as did his reaper chain cleaver). The Leman Russ tanks did kill the Maleceptor and a bunch of Termagaunts (as well as a single Tyranid Warrior) before the Carnifex, Termagaunts and Raveners crashed into them and locked them in combat.
Funnily enough, thanks to their Toughness 8, it took all 5 turns to kill all the Leman Russ tanks, despite the Carnifex's claws. Oh, and the Leman Russ tank that the Hive Tyrant failed to kill? Dakka-ed to death by Termagaunts. No, I'm not kidding. In any event, the Leman Russ tanks could do little but fight it out with the Tyranids in close quarters, though they did roll over a few Ravenors and did like 6 damage to the Carnifex from lascannon shots and an explosion from a destroyed tank. Ouch.
Victory to the Tyranids! Hive Fleet Leviathan devoured the poor Guardsmen and tore apart the poor tanks. Well...it happens. Probably my fault for deploying my tanks too far forward and allowing them to get caught up in combat so soon. If I had another round of shooting, perhaps it would have made a lot more difference, but...yeah. A lesson learned for next time.
On the other side, the Thousand Sons crushed the Blood Angels. Successors, if you want to be pedantic because they are the Encarmine Angels. Anyway, I'm not sure what happened, but apparently the Encarmine Angels managed to slay the Daemon Prince Anktu (?), as well as a couple of Rubric Marines and a few Chaos Spawn. But with 15 Chaos Spawn on the table (dropping down to 8), they overwhelmed the poor Space Marines, killing Mephiston and wiping them out until only a Contemptor Dreadnought and a Leviathan Dreadnought were left. Whoa...I did not expect that, but yeah, that was pretty brutal. In any case, the Encarmine Angels withdrew because they believed this was not a battle they could not win, leaving the remaining Guardsmen to be slaughtered by the Tyranids after the Thousand Sons opened a hole in the defenses. Apparently they were summoning Daemons (I saw a Chariot), and that sowed more discord in the defenders' ranks.
Stage 1 of Phase 1 ended in crushing defeat for the Imperium and an overwhelming victory for the xenos invaders and scheming Thousand Sons. Yikes. Hopefully the Imperium will do better next week, but we'll see. Apparently more Tyranids are coming, along with another Imperial Guard regiment and T'au. Maybe Death Guard and Sisters will show, but I dunno how that will turn out...we'll see!
And so Hive Gaia falls. Next week, we'll see the Imperium try to salvage what's left of the hive and attempt to retake it while the Tyranids and Chaos warbands carry out their plans to lay the once great Hive City to utter ruin and deny the Imperium from reclaiming a population center.
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