Hope for the Future!

[Adoni-Zedek]

Well, I played a game of 40k with my 7-year-olds on Saturday. Four Panther Teeth (grey hunters) with bolters and a Sgt (wolfguard champion) with a bolter and a powersword (166 pts) against 306 points of tyranids: 15 termagants w/ flesh borers, 6 hormagaunts, and 6 genestealers (plus three termagants for my 4-year-old, that ran around freely, but played no real role in the battle). I split the tyranids into three broods of each type of bug, so I had three broods of 2 genestealers, three broods of 2 hormagaunts, etc. Just so each of my kids had the same forces at their command. I'll have to get a pic up of the initial deployment with the kids sitting behind their bugs.

How it went: I died, naturally. But that was kind of the idea. My daughter was rather upset after I killed her two hormagaunts for no losses in close combat, and wanted to quit, but I pointed out that she still had 2 genestealers and 5 termigants left, and she agreed to stay. When one of Jon’s hormagaunts inflicted a first casualty on me, you should have heard the cheering! Landon was inclined to have his broods hide in the cool Lego buildings I’d provided, until I pointed out that he would do better having his guys hit mine along with everyone else’s. So the ‘gaunts closed in first, and inflicted 1 casualty, and were wiped out in return. I managed to pick off five termigants with shooting, and one genestealer before getting mobbed. And even then, I still managed to hold my own in the combats, due to good rolling on my part, and poor rolling on the kids’ part. I didn’t win any combats against the stealers, though. I did make 3 consecutive armor saves (6+) though! And when at last my Sergeant fell, the kids gave a big “whoopee!” Now they want to play again.

For the next battle, I’m planning on bringing two 5-man squads of marines (330 points or so) against roughly 480 points of tyranids. Maybe I’ll let them bring a tyranid warrior each, and enforce the psychology rules. Maybe I'll give them each a sheet with the starts of their troops, so they can tell me the WS of each model when I ask for it. (Not that I need it, I've got most of them memorized, but I hope it will give them a better feel for how things work)

[El Capitan]

haha thats cool,

maybe when even GW is in ruins 2nd edition will live on

[tturen]

Heh, heh, heh, great news! A little blood in the water so to speak has drawn interest. Keep up the incentive based play and cheers for the effort.

[James 40K Champ ***]

Thats cool.

You'l teach them about compromise and hopefully how to be gracious in defeat too, eventually. A hard lesson every kid must learn lol

[Adoni-Zedek]

My kids do tend to get caught up with wanting to have their guys go into the cool (well, they think they're cool anyways) lego buildings we use for scenery, rather than do the tactically sound thing and have them charge! In today's battle, Landon had a squad of hormagaunts retreat all the way back to his table edge, just so I couldn't kill any of them. Maybe he'd do better with necrons, and the whole "We'll be back" thing. But I got one of the new carnifexes for Christmas, and I let them each paint a termigant and genestealer for fun, and now they're all set on playing tyranids.

They do need to work on being good losers and winners. We've practiced saying "good game" when playing Connect Four, regardless of who wins. This is more good practice.
Anyway, here;s some pics of the little monsters:
Deployment
Deploment Take two
Post Battle Victory Party!

If you poke around in my photostream, you can see some other shots of the munchkins, as well as some of my minis

[James 40K Champ ***]

lol

I like your connect 4 idea.. so hard to be a good looser when your little

[James 40K Champ ***]

Did you bring that my little pony in the background into play as some kinda of evil chaos daemon??

[El Capitan]

Have you a coup planned in a few decades time

[Adoni-Zedek]

We didn't use the my-little pony, but you might have seen the brightly colored termigants and genestealers scattered across the board. They each got to paint a termigant, and the triplets each got to paint a genestealer as well. (those paintjobs will endure until I finish with my marines and eldar, and I finally have time to paint my tyranids...about 100 years from now!). So Ryndee and Tayla painted theirs pink, and Landon and Jon favored gold for the claws. So they each got to control their tyranids.

[Adoni-Zedek]

Well, the brave forces of the Panther Marines have once again been ruthlessly wiped out in a vicious attack by a rampaging tyranid swarm. (Of course, if you listen to my kids, the Marines are the bad guys, and the Tyranids are the good guys . Only the boys still want to play, but even 4-year-old Ryndee is quite firmly convinced that the Tyranids are the good guys). Yes, 6 tyranid warriors with devourers, 8 genestealers, 12 hormagaunts and 19 termigants with flesh borers managed to wipe out two 5-man squads of marines, one with a flamer, and one with a heavy bolter. So 740 points of tyranids killed 330 points of marines. By the end, the Tyranids had 1 hormagaunt, 3 genestealers, and 18 termagants left (200 points of bugs) alive. Nearly half my casualties were inflicted by the Devourers carried by the tyranid warriors. Man, those things are nasty! I lost about 2 marines to the flesh borers, and the rest fell to the genestealer charge. And I still haven’t had a chance to use my flamer against the bugs. It died this game without firing once, and I shot it in my previous game, but the termigants were just outside its reach. My heavy bolter took out most of the tyranid warriors, and half of the hormagaunts. Jonathan purchased (through me) a new lictor model off ebay (using his Christmas money and 10 week’s allowance), and they are excited to use it in the next battle. I think I’ll need to start equalizing the forces a bit, maybe put the marines at 75% of the tyranid total. Still, it’s been fun trying to stay alive against overwhelming odds. Shows the true power of concentrated bolter fire.

[Simon]

adonizedek said:

Of course, if you listen to my kids, the Marines are the bad guys, and the Tyranids are the good guys . Only the boys still want to play, but even 4-year-old Ryndee is quite firmly convinced that the Tyranids are the good guys

What do you mean? The 'Nids are the good guys!

[Adoni-Zedek]

Uhh...hate to break it to you, Simon, but the Tyranids are BAD guys. Somebody lied to you. I think you should find them and unleash your swarm of bugs on them. <grin>

[Simon]

But there's no clear cut bad guys in 40K, that's what makes it a rich universe. Tyranids are just migrating and acting in the best interest of their race, just like everyone else. The Tau's "For the Greater Good" philosophy in context of everything else is "For the Greater Good of the Tau Empire", putting a bias on their point of view. These spread across the races so that there is no direct concept of good guys or bad guys in there. The thousand sons are a prime example of this with the reason for their fall being the mistrust of the emperor.

[El Capitan]

One thing that I love about 40k is that every race has its background told from its own perspective. As such the Tyranids are simply going about their business and the Imperium is refusing to accept its role as cattle and is resisting.
Other misunderstood races include the Dark Eldar - who must torture victims so that they surrender their souls - otherwise they will die!
Orks - They see killing and war as a mutual game and per se fight only where there is resistance whence a Waaaagh!
Chaos - An Anarco-resistance, ranging from freedom fighters to the more fanatical. The Chaos gods are little different to those from all the rest.
Necrons - Wake up after centuries in the basement to find soembody living upstairs!

The real problem is that especially when 3rd ed dumbed it all down they made this good vs evil split, (one GW staff member actually described Chaos as naughty marines) which almost killed the plot entirely.
The Imperium is a brutal fascist system that commits genocide upon its own people if they sway from the standard codes. The Eldar are getting their comeuppance for being a grim race fo excess. On the flip they are both fighting for survival and to defend their people.

Their are no bad guys - and although through the years we've probably attached some sympathies and pushed the story a different way to GW, the 41st millennium is a great exercise in understanding differences, forms of government, religious roles, resource conflict etc etc - the only difference being the 40k races have been set-up so their cannot be peace. . . . ever!

[Adoni-Zedek]

Even though the Eldar and the Imperium share a common foe in Chaos (and the tyranids, and orks, and necrons, etc. etc.) they are both more concerned with their own personal welfare than they are worried about making peace with each other. The Eldar are (understandably) worried about preserving what's left of their race, and would actually prefer to lead their enemies to hit the imperium instead. And the imperium is roughly the same. Even if they did unite, and managed to scour the galaxy of other threats (and I rather doubt they could in any case), they'd promptly turn on each other.

Of course, for the necrons, the reason they went to bed was because there was no one left upstairs for them to kill. If you believe the C'tan fluff anyway.

Still, everyone know the Tyranids are BAD GUYS! <grin!> (Of course, you can't call them evil, any more than you could call an anteater evil for eating ants)

[Havok]

Thing with the Tyranids is they are easily the most alien of the 40k races, and so cannot be judged in comparison really, to me they are more of a force of nature than a political or survival based species. Despite them being sentient and with a hive mind they simply strive to be, the hive fleet's Kraken and Behemoth etc displaying advancing tactics but still with the simple urge to consume at their heart. So from a human stand point they are possibly worse than chaos, who as mike said at their most fanatical are simply agents of the universe's most feral aspects, where as the Tyranids are without even the most simplistic human traits.

[James 40K Champ ***]

Its true, if we were imperium, I think tyranids is the very last thing thing i'd like to be invaded by, thats some scary stuff. Necrons would suck too, but at least you could try running. If i had to pick a race, it would be a slanesh army, at least you get to fantasise a bit before being maimed

[Adoni-Zedek]

Of course, tyranids being tyranids, when they did get to you it'd be quick. If you get captured by Chaos, you may be up for a messy sacrifice. And even worse are the Dark Eldar. You might last for days and days with them.

[James 40K Champ ***]

yeah, but I was thinking in terms of dying in combat. The terror of tyranids would be horrible

[LukeG]

If I had to pick a 'good' race, I would have to pick Orks

They honestly believe in reincarnation, and as such don't see killing as a bad thing. The down side is the fact this is a good excuse to kill everyone you meet, but at least they don't mean you any lasting harm. Good intentions and all as the Orks see the Universe as one big Valhalla.