Counter Offensive 6: Bug Hunt 2  by Patrick Eibel 
Back at Spring Offensive in 2001, we participated in an event called “the Bug Hunt,” designed by Michael Lietzke.  The idea was that each player would bring the equivalent of a Kill Team and see how long they could survive as more and more bugs crawled onto the table to eat them.  The scenario turned out to be lots of fun and is great for a gathering of a bunch of players, as it goes faster than an actual game and everyone can play at the same time. 

This year at Counter Offensive, I thought I would revive the scenario for the annual Saturday night game at my house.  I will provide the rules for how I ran the game so that you can try it at your gaming store or home.  For the game I ran, we had four players: Ken Lacy with his Slaan (proxied Tau); Bryan Layton with his Daemon Prince and Nurgle Chaos Marines; Mel Glover with a proxied Pedro Kantor and the Emperor’s Wolfhounds Space Marines; and Kenton Kilgore and his Dvergar (proxied Orks).

The Players
Each player can bring up to 900 points of Troops and HQ, within the Force Organization Chart limits (e.g., no more than two HQ units).  The point values are to include any wargear, weapon upgrades, character upgrades, retinues, or other modifications.  No vehicles of any type may be taken by any unit selection.

There are no restrictions on which armies can participate—even other Tyranids can play!—but players are not permitted to attack each other’s forces: the Bugs are so numerous that not a single shot can be wasted.  Players may, and are encouraged, to ally with each other and work together to keep their forces alive—and thus stay in the game—longer.

On the first turn, players select a point on the board and Deep Strike to that point, checking for scatter normally.  Units may not assault, but may run during the Shooting phase (as there won’t be anything to shoot at yet).  Units may move as normal for the rest of the game.  Morale checks are ignored—every man will fight to the death against an endless swarm of Bugs—because honestly, what fun would it be to have a squad run off the board?

The Bugs
The Tyranids may enter the board by one of two methods.  They may only use these methods and cannot enter from the board edge.

• Method 1: Hive Node.  There will be six hive nodes placed around the board.  These nodes will allow a Tyranid unit to Deep Strike with within 6" without scattering (all other Deep Strike rules apply).  We assume for the sake of the game that the Tyranids are burrowing up from below, following the Hive Node's psychic signal.  More than one unit may use a hive node in a round as long as all units are able to stay within 6" of the node.
• Method 2: Tunnel Entrance.  There will be three tunnel entrance markers placed on the board.  Each round, one Tyranid unit may use a tunnel entrance to enter play as if entering from a board edge.  This means the unit may move, Fleet-of-Claw  (if able), and assault on the turn it enters.  Each tunnel entrance may only be used once per round.

Hormagaunts emerge from a building, within which is a tunnel entrance, to challenge the Dvergar. On the left, more
Hormies Deep Strike in to menace a unit of Ken Lacy's yellow-armored Slaan--and to munch on someone's hand! 

The Tyranid units will enter the board in waves. See below to determine which units are available in each round (the waves were based on models I had available; your waves may be different).  More than one of an available unit may enter play during a round: the list merely describes the number of figures in a unit and how it is equipped. 

Wave 1 Units.  All units in Wave 1 are considered to have “Without Number”:
• 18 Termagants w/ fleshborers and toxin sacs
• 24 Hormagaunts w/ toxin sacs
• 6 Ripper Swarm bases
Wave 2 Units:
• Zoanthrope w/ Synapse and Warp Blast
• Lictor
• 6 Raveners w/ scything talons and rending claws
Wave 3 Units:
• Broodlord
• 12 Genestealers w/ extended carapace and feeder tendrils
Wave 4 Units:
• 6 Warriors (units have a variety of biomorphs)
Wave 5 Units:
• Hive Tyrant (may have a variety of biomorphs and Tyrant Guard retinue, as desired)
• Carnifex (may have a variety of biomorphs)
Wave 6 Units:
• Barbed Hierodule

Wave 1. Ken's Yellow Squad wonders if they can kill all those Hormies before they pounce. 
Kenton's Dvergar wonder if there will be enough Bugs to go around 

Scoring
A player scores one point for each wound he inflicts on a unit.  This means creatures with only one Wound will be killed, but wounds on multi-Wound creatures will count even if they are not dead at the time the player is eliminated.  Players also receive an additional 10 points for killing off an entire unit.  For instance, if a player kills the last Gaunt in a brood, they receive one point for the Gaunt and ten points for the entire brood.  Likewise, if a player kills a Carnifex, they receive points for each wound inflicted on the Carnifex as well as ten points for the creature.  A player continues accruing points as long as he has living models on the board.  Once all of their models are eliminated, tally the total number of points the scored.  The game continues until all player models have been eliminated.  The player with the highest number of points wins.

So What Happened?
I was fortunate to have the help of Michael, the designer of the original scenario, who had brought along all of his Tyranids to add to mine, so there was more than enough carnage to go around.  Because the Deep Strike rules kept them out of assault when they arrived, the Tyranids had a rough going for the first four waves, as the players manuevered their forces and unleashed all kinds of Hell on the Bugs.  I deliberately designed the scenario so that would happen, to let the players have some easy targets and some fun before the “hard stuff” arrived.  Or, as Kenton put it, “Just because shooting fish in a barrel is easy doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time.”

There was plenty of “shooting” indeed, especially from the rifles of the Slaan; adjacent to them, the Dvergar smashed their way through brood after brood of Bugs.  At the other end of the table, Bryan’s Nurgle Marines and the Bugs formed an immobile tar pit, with the Nids piling on in a wearing attempt to grind down the Chaos followers. Mel’s Wolfhounds fought valiantly, but they were isolated near one corner of the table, too far to receive help from the other armies, and were the first to fall to the Nids. 

Once the Warriors started to hit the board, the Bugs began to gain a foothold and the slaughter was on, with the Tau suffering heavy losses and even the tough-as-nails Chaos Marines and the grotesquely-numerous Dvergar taking serious hits.  At the end of Wave 5, at 1:30 in the morning, we all agreed to call it a game and get some sleep. 

The Dvergar were the clear winner, scoring a massive 286 points, about as many as the other three players combined.  As I alluded to before, Kenton did it with sheer numbers: he started out the game with 97 figures on the board: 

• Warboss 
• Painboy + 9 Nobz w/ big choppas and ‘eavy armor (Troops choice because of Warboss)
• 24 Gretchin + 2 Runtherds 
• 30 Boyz w/ sluggas and choppas, including a Nob w/ a power klaw 
• 27 Boyz w/ shootas and 3 w/ big shootas 

Related Pages 
Other Counter Offensives

Posted September 2009
 

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