2k Batrep vs Sisters

I've been itching to test the latest list so I threw out a challenge and my buddy Eric accepted.  I've never played him before, but I've seen his armies at tournaments and he brings the pain.  He also went 3-0 two weeks ago at the local team tournament. 

My list:
Tervigon (HQ) ts, ag, cat, cs
Hive Guard x3
Hive Guard x3
Doom of Malanti + mycetic spore
20 Genestealers + ts
20 Termagants
Tervigon + ts, ag, cat, cs
Raveners x3 + rending
Raveners x3 + rending
Tyrannofex + rc, dl, cs
Tyrannofex + rc, dl, cs

Eric's list:
Cannoness + eviscerator, artificier armor, book, jump pack, cloak
Cannoness + eviscerator, artificier armor, book
Celestian retinue + 2 meltas, immolator, extra armor
Celestians + 2 meltas, immolator, extra armor
Celestians + 2 meltas, immolator, extra armor
Seraphim unit
Sisters x10 + 2 meltas, book, rhino
Sisters x10 + hvy flamer, flamer, combi-flamer, book, rhino
Sisters x10 + hvy flamer, flamer, combi-flamer, book, rhino
Sisters x10 + hvy flamer, flamer, combi-flamer, book, rhino
Exorcist
Exorcist

We rolled a NOVA style mission with primary victory for killpoints, then objectives, table quarters, and victory points.  We rolled for first turn 2, 2 then 2, 2 then 2,5 I lose rolling three 2's in a row lol.  Deployment was pitched battle. 

The bonepiles in table quarters are objectives as is the poker chip in the center, placed as per the NOVA packet.
Eric deployed centrally in a parking lot with his 9 vehicles.  For your reference, the yellow vehicles on my left are the exorcists.  Two primered immolators in front with the melta celestians.  The pink immolator in front has one cannoness with celestian retinue.  3 rhinos in the back center have the flamer units and the green one on the right has the meltas.  Seraphim are in orange in the back middle.

I deploy off center favoring my left side.  Gaunts screen, hive guard near center, raveners behind the hive guard.  One tyrannofex used the left skyshield for cover and a tervigon behind him.  The other tyrannofex used the forest on the right for cover and a tervigon behind him.  Genestealers infiltrate up 18" from the exorcists and back a bit so they don't get immolated turn 1.

The pre-game:  Ok so it's a KP game and he has a lot more than me.  If I play smart and safe, I should be able to pull it off.  He has a ton of ap1 between exorcists and meltas so I need to use catalyst where it can actually help.  Tyrannofexes will go after exorcists, hive guard will go for transports.   I want to use genestealers and raveners to bracket the doom's arrival and tie up as much str8 as possible to keep him alive.

So the game begins with me failing to seize the initiative.

Eric's turn 1...

He moves all the transports forward with speed and smokes the lead ones.

He jumps the seraphim into the pocket.

He decides to target my hive guard, and kills one with 3 failed cover saves from exorcist missiles.  The rest of his shooting is all melta, flamers, and bolters so I'll have to wait until next turn...

My turn 1...

Well, I built this list to take on the heavily mechanized lists of today's 40k environment, so let's see how it goes...  Eric actually needs to get close to me to use meltas and flamers, so I don't move much except to give the tyrannofexes better shots.  Genestealers and gants shuffle up with hive guard behind.  Raveners move into threat range.  Genestealers and wounded hive guard get FnP.

I open up with impressive salvos from the hive guard, wrecking and exploding the two lead immolators despite smoke (the black ones) and killing one sister.  He passes the pinning tests.  My tyrannofexes fail to hit or penetrate cover on the exorcists.  The unpainted raveners attempt to assault one of the sister squads that spilled out, but I rolled a 4 and 1 for terrain (forgot raveners get 3 dice) and miss by a smidge.

End of turn 1... Eric 0kp, Me 2kp

Eric's turn 2...  He shifts up some more, but doesn't commit to jumping out of the loaded transports as he's not quite close enough yet, and probably because the DoM is coming down soon...   The orange sisters (in a crater get 1,1 for movement.  The white sisters don't do much better but get into melta range.  Seraphim jump up.  Exorcists juckey for better shots.  The jump pack cannoness leaves the seraphim and heads towards my righ flank.

He pours a lot of short range fire into the unpainted raveners and I fail a load of cover saves, losing 2 to instant death and 2 wounds from bolters.  Exorcists target the wounded hive guard unit and kill another one.

My turn 2...  The Doom arrives!  I use that nice pocket in the center to bracket his arrival.  The mass of the swarm shifts up.  Tyrannofex, tervigon, and painted raveners shift to the right.  I'm going to try and open up the pink immolator (cannoness + retinue), pie plate, and assault them.

At this point, we remove the skyshield on the left and mark it's place with dice so I can run my genestealers underneath.  The doom only manages to suck one soul after leadership tests and cover saves.  The full hive guard unit wrecks the last immolator.  The lone hive guard shakes a rhino.  The doom annihilates 2 sisters and 2 seraphim with cataclysm and takes 3 wounds (puts him up to 6).  Tervigon plates the retinue, kills 1 and puts a wound on the cannoness.  Tyrannofexes manage to explode one exorcist and stun the other.  Genestealers and raveners run for assaults.

Raveners both their terrain role to get to the retinue again (forgot 3d6 again).  Genestealers pile into the seraphim and tear them to shreds.  I consolidate 5" back under the skyshield.  The lone unpainted ravener with 1 wound assaults the white celestian squad in cover and kills 1.  It was a risky assault, but I didn't have anything better to do with him.

End of turn 2... Eric 0kp, Me 5kp

Eric's turn 3...  He still has 12 faith and is about to start bringing the pain.  He tank shocks the mycetic spore and I decide to death or glory it (str6 MC) which was probably a mistake.  I only manage to glance and stun it, giving him a free kp.  The move also bunches up some genestealers.  He moves up two rhinos worth of sister units, each with 3 flamers and prepares to barbeque genestealers.

On my right flank, the jump cannoness flies up solo in front of the cannoness with her retinue.  The green rhino rolls up and unloads 10 more sisters with 2 meltas.

He divine guidances the sisters by the genestealers, failing with one.  He rapid fires and drops 6 flamer templates from the 20 sisters and drops an amazing 18 genestealers even with FnP.  Ouch!  A couple meltas target the doom and I make my invulns.  The doom sucks one sister from the ravener combat.  Combined meltas on the right mow down the painted ravener unit.  In assault, the unpainted ravener kills another sister.

My turn 3...   I spawn a unit of gants on the right to intercept the incoming sisters and get 1,1,2, yup 4 total with doubles haha!  Instead, I run them behind the tervigon to protect the easy kp.  I move the doom 6" towards my right flank to try and suck the sisters there.  I probably should have gone left towards the squads that just roasted my genestealers.  Termagants shuffle up in a screen and get FnP.

The doom only sucks 1 soul (up to 8 wounds now) and attempts to pie plate, the squad in the forest, but I roll 6,6 and fail my invulns taking a wound from perils.  I've got to stop the dual cannonesses on my right as he has a ton of faith left and that 2+ invuln gets annoying, so I pour the tervigon and tyrannofex into them but only kill 2.  Hive guard immobilize the lead rhino (empty) and remaining occupied rhino in the middle.  Tyrannofex in the middle wiffs on the last exorcist.  I assault the cannonesses to tie them up and prevent my monsters from getting shot.  He makes them invuln and we exchange a couple wounds.

My 2 surviving genestealers assault the now immobile empty rhino and wreck it.  The lone ravener finished the last sister and consolidates back into cover.

End of turn 3... Eric 2kp, Me 7kp

Eric's turn 4... He unloads the last remaining rhino and heads up the middle.  One squad on the left jumps back in their ride.  The squad in the forest jumps in their ride to avoid the doom sucking their souls again.  Their rhino immobilizes itself in the forest.

He plays cleanup, flaming the two remaining genestealers, metla'ing the doom, sniping my last ravener, and killing several gants.  In assaults, he makes himself invuln again and puts more wounds on my monsters with eviscerators.

My turn 4...  Well, I lost a lot last round and I'm about to lose more as my tyrannofex and tervigon are about to go down.  Let's see if I can stay ahead.  I spawn a bunch of gants on the left without doubles.  I move up my main squad of gants and everything else on the left.  (We took out the left skyshield again and my gants would be inder it)

 In shooting, I kill 3 sisters with gants.  The tervigon misses with its pie plate and kills 3 of my own gants hah.  My unengaged tyrannofex explodes the last exorcist.  I assault two squads of sisters with two squads of gants.

I kill 3 sisters from one squad and 4 from the other, only losing 1 gant in return.  I had furious charge, poison, and FnP on one unit.  Sisters are lower init, str3, and t3 so this went well for me.

End of turn 4... Eric 6kp, Me 9kp

Eric's turn 5...  He moves the loaded rhino over and unloads by my tervigon.  The green squad jumps out into the forest again.

He torrents down the unit of 4 gants.  The red squad uses holy guidance, but only scores 1 wound on my tervigon.  The orange squad jumps into the melee.  In assault, one cannoness kills my tyrannofex and the other puts my tervigon down to 1 wound.  My big squad of gants in the middle finishes off the white squad of sisters.

My turn 5...   At the start of my turn, it's 8-9 so I need to play this smart.  My tyrannofex lines up on the sisters in the forest.  Tervigon on the left spawns another heap of gants without doubles.

Hive guard wreck the rhino right in front of them.  Tyrannofex drops a bunch of sisters and then assaults into them.  Spawned gants and tervigon plow into the red sisters.  On the right, my tervigon and cannoness kill each other with simultaneous strikes!  We roll for the end and get a 1!

End of game... Eric 9kp, Me 12kp

Post game:  That went well, pretty much exactly how my list was designed to function with a few flukes.  Eric had 9 vehicles which is in the ballpark of what I will be facing at NOVA.  At the end, 7 were destroyed and 2 immbilized.  That's pretty good anti-mech IMO.  I forgot move through cover on my raveners, but that would have only furthered my lead.  I could have moved the doom into more effective sucking position, but it was my first game using him so I'm still learning.  Eric said at the end, he probably should have used the exorcists on my tervigons which could have changed things.  They're my only synapse and it would have meant less gants spawned.  All in all, it was a great and very enjoyable game!