And the dice fell like hail on a tin roof.

So I headed up to TGR on Tue night to throw down with my friends Michael and Kaity.  We decided to go for a 3 person game with both of them combining their points to make a really nasty Nid/Dark Eldar army against my 1500 points of Salamanders.

We rolled for mission and deployment, again looking longingly at the Missions book sitting on the shelf.  We ended up with Annihilation with Spearhead deployment.  The table was laid out in the ever popular Bavarian village format, with some pretty open terrain.  Not thinking head I asked them to go first after winning the initiative roll, I really should have taken the first turn.

They spread their forces out with the bug masses moving to my right and the center, with the DE squad dismounted in the middle and their skimmers coming along the left side.  I kept everyone in their rides with the Tactical Rhinos in the middle and the stand-in razor back on the left.  The right side held the Pred and my Thunderfire. With the start of turn one the firing commences with the Hive Tyrant opening up on the Thunderfire making the Tech Marine wish I had given him cover.  His thoughts were cut short by the DE and their Ravager showing the nids how its done.  Second game I haven't gotten a shot off with that Canon.  You would think folks are scared of it or something.  No other big shots from the dark side of the board, leaving it my turn to finally move and shoot.  I fire off the Las canon from the Pred getting a direct hit on the Ravager, the resulting fireball was a nice memorial to the lost Tech Marine. The Rhinos fired off a flurry of hunter killers stunning one of the raiders and wounding the Talos.  The command squad and their Razorback stun the last raider with their las canon shot.

The second turn sees the Pred fall under the sights of the hive tyrant, loosing its las canon in the blast.  The bugs of course scuttle about.  Chaplin Tus'Tin fails to arrive with his terminator squad, so I make do in the mean time by opening up on the raiders.  Melta fire from one of the brothers in first squad hanging out the top hatch on the Rhino takes out the first raider in a spectacular explosion, the command teams Razor Back wrecks the second not to be out done.

Turn three becomes the bugs revenge.  An opening salvo by the warriors cracks open the second squad Rhino, killing 4 brothers in the process.  The remaining brothers pile out only to be mobbed in CC by a near by gaunt squad, even with valiant fighting they did not see the end of turn three.  The return fire by the marines sees the DE Archon die to a well placed Melta shot after he had tried to grenade the Rhino in his CC turn.  The Chaplin and his Terminators arrive and lay waste to the DE squad holding the back of their deployment zone.  The surviving two DE troopers were never seen again as they ran from the field.  The Command squad disembarks to take the fight to the DE command team.

The top of 4 sees a hail storm of shots fire upon the Terminators.  48 shots total from the Termigaunt brood, bring down two of the brothers.  The Tyrant moves in for the kill during the assault phase, wiping out everyone but the Chaplin.  They would stay locked in epic combat till turn 6.

The rest of the game was a desperate attempt at mopup with the brothers of squad 2 disembarking and taking their revenge on the Hormigaunt squad for the loss of their brothers in squad 1.  They manged to kill all but one gaunt, who scuttled off and hid for the remainder of the game, denying the salamanders a kill point.  The Talos takes a swipe at the Predator removing a Heavy Bolter on its way to wipe out the brothers of squad 1 still celebrating their slaughter of the Hormigaunts.  They would not survive the encounter.  The Steelers chased the predator around the board, in a valiant effort to try to crack open the hard shell and get to the gooey insides.  Alas at the end of turn 7 neither the Steelers or the Pred had wiped out its foe. 

All in all it was a close game, the forces of darkness scored 7 total kill points, with the Salamanders only scoring 6.  Two of the bug squads were down to 3 models or less and I could have made up my points if I could have gotten to them.  Smart playing and good dice roll really took the day.