Dark Eldar 2000pts
Haemi + liquifier (attached to wyches #1)
Haemi + liquifier, crucible of malediction (attached to wyches #2)
Haemi + hex rifle
5 Incubi + klaivex, bloodstone, raider + flicker fields, splinter racks
4 Trueborn + 4 blasters, venom
7 Wyches + shardnet, hekatrix + agonizer, raider + flicker fields
7 Wyches + shardnet, hekatrix + agonizer, raider + flicker fields
10 Warriors + splinter cannon, raider + flicker fields, splinter racks
10 Warriors + splinter cannon, raider + flicker fields, splinter racks
20 Warriors + 2 dark lances
6 Reavers + 2 heat lances, cluster caltrops
Ravagers + 3 dark lances, flicker fields
Razorwing Fighter + splinter cannon, flicker fields, monoscythe missiles (proxied with a ravager and a big yellow post-it)
Tyranids 2000pts
Parasite of Mortrex
Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Ymgarl Genestealers x7
Genestealers x15 + broodlord
Genestealers x15 + broodlord
Termagants x10 + devourers
Termagants x10 + devourers
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, catalyst, stinger salvo
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, catalyst, stinger salvo
14 Gargoyles + toxins, adrenals
Tyrannofex + rupture cannon, desiccator larvae, stinger salvo
We rolled Annihilation and Spearhead deployment. We played in my man cave on my snow table. It containts exactly 25% terrain coverage and was set up as such:
Pre-game analysis: I'm always cautious and borderline scared the first time I face any codex. I know he has many lances, tons of poison shooting, an ID sniper rifle, tons of mobility, and I really have no feeling as to how the wyches will play out in close combat. However, I have the advantage by many killpoints for this mission and I know I can't be timid or play defensive with Tyranids.
I win first turn and deployment and take it. Here's how I deployed:
My gargoyles + PoM screened my whole front, keeping a majority behind the forest for cover. Both hive guard units went behind and central for best shooting coverage. Devilgaunts went on either side, tyrannofex in the center, tervigons on either side behind hills and rocks for cover. For those of you who have read my page on competitive execution of tyranids, here's my checklist:
Step #1: balanced list - check. I have 3 decent assault units with lots of bodies and speed. Genestealers and ymgarls for disruption. Devilgaunts and stinger salvos for suppression fire. Hive guard and tyrannofex for ranged anti-armor.
Step #2: know thyself - check, but still practicing with some of these units. know thy enemy: nope, first game versus new dark eldar.
Step #3: proper deployment - check. My entire army has cover for turn 1 in case he seizes. I deployed centrally and aggressively as far forward as I could with max threat radius on my shooting. I also have options to move my jump infantry up 12" and still be in cover.
Tim deploys as such:
On my left flank, the wyches are in the lead raider with warriors behind and incubi above and behind. Back corner is the razorwin prozy with the yellow paper, 20 warriors with lances in the forest, and ravager next to them. On my right flank are the reavers, venom with trueborn, wyches with crucible, and warriors behind. He's done a good job balancing his force so I have few options for my genestealers. I infiltrate them on the flanks outside my deployment zone and hide the ymgarls in the large central forest.
See how my genestealers are clustered and then chained? That's to create the widest threat web, maintain majority cover, and still be in synapse and range for FnP. Tim rolls +1str combat drugs and fails to seize. The game begins...
My turn 1... I give FnP to the genestealers on the left flank and gargoyle unit. At this point, the genestealers on the right flank are furthest from splinter rifle fire so I cross my fingers that they will be ok. Everything advances and I lose 1 gargoyle in the forest. Tervigons move forward and towards the flanks to maintain synapse and FnP range on my genestealer units. Genestealers on the right move through cover and I roll 1,1,1, yup... The placement of units after my movement phase is to prevent the skimmers from deploying assault units into my core. I have 3 units in shooting range and I deem the incubi, wyches, and razorwing to be the largest threats. Hive guard wreck the wyche raider on my right with the crucible. The other hive guard immobilize and weapon destroy the raider with the incubi. The tyrannofex stuns the razorwing. Here's a shot at the end of my turn:
Tim's turn 1... His wyches on the right move towards my genestealers. Wyches on the left move towards genestealers and disembark from the raider. He keeps the incubi in their raider for now as a counter assault unit. Warrior raider shift for better shots, as does the ravager. Tueborns in their venom don't have many options so they move up 6". Reavers turbo boost 36" over my right tervigon hitting it with blade vanes and cluster caltrops and I suffer 2 wounds.
End of turn 1. Tyranids 1kp, Dark Eldar 0kp
My turn 2... No ymgarls yet. I give FnP to both genestealer units. Gargoyles and PoM jump up right in front of the venom with trueborn. Genestealers on the right move for the wyches. Tervigon spawns 15 (! no doubles) gants and the devilgaunts reposition to do some damage to the reavers. Tervigon on the left stays near the genestealers and her devilgaunts move to the center. Tyrannofex and hive guard advance.
The full strength hive guard unit explodes the venom killing 1 trueborn and 1 gargoyle. The lone hive guard rolls 1,1 for shooting. Tyrannofex also wiffs against the razorwing fighter. Genestealers assault wyches and haemi on my right flank.
Tim's turn 2... Two remaining wyches continue to fall back. Incubi jump out of their immobile raider and make for my genestealers. His razorwing is finally free and he jumps 12" and unloads all missiles at the genestealers on the right flank along with lances and splinter cannon. The haemi with the hex rifle misses my hive guard.
End of turn 2. Tyranids 5kp, Dark Eldar 2kp.
My turn 3... Ygmarls arrive in the center forest and head for the trueborn. Hive guard in the middle fails IB and must shoot at the fleeing wyches. Genestealers up top head for the warrior raider. Genestealers in the bottom left reposition so I can assault incubi and mot go through cover. Everything else moves up. Genestealers in the bottom left get FnP as does the tervigon with 3 wounds left.
Tim's turn 3... He doesn't have much left at this point, but there's a slim chance he can take out my rear tervigon and the 2 units of gants near it. He moves into firing positions, warriors disembarking their shaken transport to fire.
End of turn 3. Tyranids 8kp, Dark Eldar 2kp.
My turn 4... Everything is back in synapse. Ymgarls move towards the remaining warrior raider. Broodlord & pal head towards the 20 warriors. Big genestealer unit move towards the 20 warriors. Gants, tervigons, hive guard, and tyrannofex advance. Devilgaunts shake the raider again. Hive guard shots all get flicker fielded! Tyrannofex blows a lance off the ravager. Tervigon shoots the wyches empty raider and gets flicker fielded!
Tim's turn 4... He's just got skimmers and 2 warriors left. Skimmers gun for the wounded tervigon and only score 1 wound. He misses the broodlord entirely for another kp.
End of turn 4 and end of game. Tyranids 12kp, Dark Eldar 2kp.
The post game: My goal here is to kep my analysis to my own play and army. Everyone makes decisions that others could perceive as mistakes. Rather than focus on possible mistakes of my opponents, I'll keep to my own play and reactions to advantages presented to me.
Deploying genestealers on each flank worked well to divide his fire. I crippled his assault abilities in turn 1 by immobilizing the incubi transport and dismounting one unit of wyches. As a result, he couldn't strike my low init units and was forced to go toe-to-toe with genestealers, which I had given FnP for several turns. Hive guard delivered as always and the tfex was unreliable as always. Devil gaunts never even got shot at so they were able to pump out 15-45 shots per turn between both units. My only true failure was assaulting the trueborn in cover without FnP and losing my only 2kp in the game. Tim's dice were definately underperforming mine, but I rolled triple 1's twice this game and one turn saw me roll seven 1's in a row. I was overall pleased with my first game against dark eldar. This was also one of Tim's first games with the new codex. I'm sure he took a lot away from that battle and could put some serious hurt on my list next time.
Haha, if you're not going to point out my mistakes, I will:
ReplyDelete1) I spread my forces too thin. As you said after the game, Dark Eldar rely on hitting one part of the opponent hard in order to build up pain tokens. I should have swung everything to one side the first turn.
2) I didn't stay at range with my lances. I'm used to being out-ranged by 48" shots, so I played my guns at mid-range. This allowed you to shoot me up with Hive Guard.
3) I should have started the Razorwing off the table. It's better to move on and fire everything, rather than get stunned a bunch. Also, I could have deep struck it into your backfield and scored some easy points on the gaunts.
4) I was over-confident with my assault units. I'm used to my initiative being enough to win fights, but genestealers are just as fast (or faster).
5) I hung my jetbikes out to dry. With the rest of my army hanging back, the jetbikes were easy picking. It would have been worth it if they picked up a kill point, but I wasted them on putting a couple wounds on a Tervigon. I'm debating substituting a Voidraven in for them.
That being said, you played things well. Keeping your genestealers spread prevented me from getting in your backfield, and let you keep FnP on them. And pretty much everything else was in cover the whole game.
A fun game, though. My Trueborn are definitely getting a promotion. Three of them taking down a unit of gargoyles and the Parasite in combat was epic.
Oh, and I just realized that Haemonculi aren't fleet, so I made a couple illegal moves. But they got butchered anyway, so no big deal.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the battle rep. So Tervigon just gives an awesome survivability to other fragile units like genestealers.
ReplyDeleteTim ~ I agree with everything. I would have even hugged the back corner so only my tfex could fire turn 1. Then pick off any units that overextend. and use the lances to take out hive guard as I try to get in range. The reavers could have turboboosted over genestealers instead on a flank/board edge. This would have forced me to assault backwards or risk the lances in my backfield. The haaemi/fleet thing stuck me also as I wrote the batrep. I think once you master the finesse moves the army will be very strong. Hamstringing the incubi was key I think as they would have wiped out the gargoyes or any unit of gants with their transport + fleet + assault range.
ReplyDeleteAndreas ~ Yup. You typically won't want to spawn more units in killpoint missions, but I was adding a kp while removing one of his in my backfield which is mostly safe since I was ahead already. Other than that, tervigons are a support unit. I've never been happy with them as a front line or assault unit. In my playstyle, the exist to dole out FnP and make gants a good assault unit.
Another question: The gaunts produced by the tervigon are a killpoint? :S I think they aren't but wanted to ask the question to somebody. If the answer is yes, then tervigons aren't good at anhihilation... (spelled that wrong, i know)
ReplyDeleteYes, they are worth a killpoint if wiped out but not victory points as per the tyranid FAQ.
ReplyDeleteSpawning is situational, even in annihilation games. Since we don't have transports, we typically begin the game with less killpoints than out opponent making spawning somewhat safe.
It's more of an opportunistic thing. Remember they spawn within 6" and can move 6", shoot, and assault the same turn giving you an 18" threat radius barring bad terrain rolls. It gives you the opportunity to strike in unexpected places if your tervigons are centralized. If you string them when they spawn and move and keep at least 1 model within 6" of a tervigon with toxins and adrenals, you can glance vehicles get rerolled wounds against marines.
Just curious as to why ya titled this as a competitive battle ?? Ya pretty much steam filleted the dark kins.
ReplyDeleteG
Mostly because I was using a competitive list instead of a comp list. Our local community has strong divisions so I don't often get the chance to use a list like this in casual play.
ReplyDeleteOkay that makes goodcsense then but still I think the title is a bit misleading. If I hear/see the term competitive thrown out there I'm expecting a tight game. This though was pretty much a clinic for your bugs.
ReplyDeleteGreat bat rep and excellent pictures! Very easy to follow the game turn by turn and fully understand what's going on.
G
@Black Blow Fly
ReplyDeleteI think it was named competitive, because competitive armies took place... It's the same at tournaments. Maybe somebody will lose without an objective or killpoint, but it will still be competitive. It's a tour after all :)
The title was very misleading - should have been Bugz rape dark eldarz.
ReplyDelete: )