Last night Phil and I finished the third game of a 5-game Battle Fleet Gothic campaign using the Battle Over Kotol campaign rules. The Tyranids are continuing to press into the Cophichi sector while the under pressure Imperium fleet tries to hold them back. The second game has equal sized fleets, at 750pts each, but things are far from equal… .

Game 2

This game had the defending fleet start in quite a disarrayed configuration. Some Imperium ships started with damage and the fleet started with random facings. The Tyranids were unscathed.

The random facings for Phil’s squadrons turned out very poorly for him and they were facing away from the oncoming threat. We exchanged some ordnance and Phil’s escorts pushed forward, in an effort to distract the Tyranids while the larger ships corrected their bearings. They were destroyed while the Vanguard Drones pushed in to molest the Imperium fleet.

The Imperials pushed up the righthand side, but were staggered slightly, so were getting attacked one-by-one and slow getting taken down. For their part they were causing damage to Avarice, but were unable to take out any of the large vessels.

So, the bad disposition of the Imperium made this a very difficult fight for them. So a victory for the Tyranids, albeit if from a position of strong advantage.

Game 3

Game 3 is again even points wise at 1000pts, but again there is some pre-game damage on both sides. The Tyranids had a couple of ships with critical damage (one of them taking 2 points of hull damage from a big bleed out) and the Imperium had three ships with half damage fleeing the oncoming Tyranids. Here’s how thing started…

The first things Phil did was to try to get the fleeing ships in better order and to release ordnance… lots of ordnance!

This resulted in the destruction of Avarice and several Escorts, but the Tyranid fleet kept getting closer.

Avarice exploded in the middle of the Tyranid fleet, knocking out some shields. This didn’t stop the Tyranids piling pressure on to the ships that had been fleeing and they managed to take out Void Stalker, which exploded in the midst of the Imperium fleet. Swift Guardian was also taken out.

The Imperium were still in reasonable shape, but a failed Leadership check early in their turn meant that Ordnance across the fleet wasn’t going to be reloaded and, importantly, there was not change to lock on. Phil prudently decided to withdraw… unfortunately leaving Eternal Fortitude stranded in front of the full force of the Tyranid fleet.

So another win for the Tyranids, again from a position of advantage. That’ll change in the next game, when the Tyranids will start at a disadvantage as they push deeper into the Cophichi sector.

Until next time,

Owen