Batrep: Nids & Necrons vs Orks & Guard

This game was played a week ago.  I had been working diligently on my repainted Nids and wanted to play a practice game before the team tournament.  I put up an open challenge and Andy, Dean, and Terry accepted.  Since the team event would be giving a different random partner each round, we drew teams and I ended up with Dean's Necrons across from Andy's Guard and Terry's Orks.


A note on the format.  This tournament would have the following restrictions:  No special characters, all non-troops are 0-1 (no spam), and each player must bring units from at least 4 force org slots.  These restrictions would hopefully bring out some less used units.

You'll notice my list is a bit unusual compared to what I typically use for Tyranids.  I've been wanting to make warriors work for a while and I think they have a unique advantage in this format.  I put in 3 minimum sized units with barbed stranglers so they can stay at max range and try to pin infantry.  They should be low priority targets once I'm paired with a partner and I put in a carnifex unit to draw more fire away from them.  The barbed stranglers also give me wound allocation and since the units are small and cheap, I won't lose much by going to ground.

My List (1000pts)
Tyranid Prime + boneswords, regen
Hive Guard x3
Warriors x3 + boneswords, toxin sacs, barbed strangler
Warriors x3 + deathspitters (2), barbed strangler
Warriors x3 + deathspitters (2), barbed strangler
Carnifex x2 + devourers (2 each) (prime joins here)

Dean's List:
Overlord + scythe, scarabs, command barge
Court + 1 solar pulse, 1 veil-tek, 1 lord + scythe, orb, scarabs
Deathmarks x5 (veil-tek here)
Immortals x8 + tesla (orb lord here)
Warriors x7 (solar pulse here)
Wraiths x5 + 2 whips, 1 pistol
Annihilation Barge

vs:

Andy's List:
Primaris Psyker
Vets x10 + flamers x3, demo charge, shotguns
Vets x10 + grenade launchers x3, chimera (psyker here)
Valkyrie (flamer vets here)
Devil Dog
Leman Russ Punishers x2 + lascannons

Terry's List:
Warboss + eavy armor, klaw
Lootas x14
Boyz x30 + nob, klaw, pole
Boyz x20 + nob, klaw, pole, 2 big shootas, shootas
Boyz x10 + trukk (warboss here)
Buggies x3 + rokkits
Battlewagon + kannon (shoota boyz here)

We would be playing a modified cap'n'control mission with one objective in the center of the table.  Deployment was spearhead.  We won the roll and opted to give them first turn.  We want them to come towards our short range firepower.  They also have 10 vehicles to our 2 and don't want any last turn contests.

They deploy with boyz and lootas in cover, orks on the flank, guard towards the middle, and are outflanking the valkyrie.  Their objective is in the large forest.

We deploy using terrain as much as possible for cover.  Where it's not available, the necrons with better saves screen my bugs. 

We begin the game and Dean uses his solar pulse.  Orks and guard advance.

The devil dog misses with a max scatter.  Lootas immobilize the annihilation barge.  Punishers knock down five immortals and every one stands back up.  Everything else misses or is out of range.

Necrons and Nids advance.  The command barge sweeps and explodes the devil dog.

The deathmarks deep strike behind the lootas and kill a bunch wounding on 2+ (lootas were marked) and with the veil-tek's flamer.  The survivors break and flee.  Combined fire from everything else kills 15 of the 30 boyz on foot.

Turn 2.  Orks and guard shuffle for better firing angles and assaults.

Trukk boyz drive up and unload with the warboss.

The punishers knock down a handful of immortals again and this time a few stay down.  Buggies fail to damage the command barge.  Grenade vets kill 2 deathmarks and their veil-tek.  Assault ensues in the center.  There are casualties on both sides, but it's close enough to lock.

Our turn 2 begins with a sweep, wrecking the battlewagon.

The rest of the alliance slogs forward.

Hive guard destroy two of the three buggies and blow the rokkits off the third.  Focused fire kills more boyz out of the big unit.  Carnifexes assault in to save the last wraith.  They wipe out the boyz and force the warboss to flee.

Turn 3 begins with the valkyrie arriving and dumping out the vets near our objective.

The warboss must continue to flee for now.  Remaining slugga and shoota boyz run up to try and stop the carnifexes.

The punishers put a bunch of wounds on the fexes and I actually fail more saves than I make, killing off one whole carnifex.  Grenade vets are unable to finish off the deathmarks.  Slugga boyz assault the fex and prime, shoota boyz are out of range.

Both sides take a couple wounds and we lock.

Necrons and Nids continue to advance on foot.  The last wraith jumps up next to the warboss to keep him running.

I pull back the bonesword warriors to help with the vets and provide a second scoring unit in case the necrons go down.

Hive guard fail to do any damage.  I opt not to shoot vets in case it botches the assault.  Turns out I fail the assault move anyways due to the shape of the terrain, forcing me to roll and fail.  In the center, I lose the prime and the carnifex knocks the boyz down to just the nob.

It's now the top of turn 4 and the remaining boyz move to finish off the fex.  The warboss runs away from the wraith again.

Vets inch closer to the warriors to flame them and chuck the demo charge.  Valkyrie flies off to stay safe for a turn.

He fires everything and due to wound allocation shenanigans and good 4+ saves on the flamer wounds, I only lose 1 warrior.  Backfield vets fail to kill the last deathmark.

Punishers bang on the immortals again, killing the squad this time but the lord stands back up.  They decide to go for extra attacks so the vets assault the bonesword warriors.  I kill 5 before they swing, the surviving 5 wiff and get run down.  Shoota boyz assault the last fex and kill it, it takes down the nob from the large unit at the same time.

It's now our turn 4 and we shuffle up.  The lone lord is up top behind the largest tree.

The command barge moves up 12", sweeping and wrecking the chimera, and dumps out the overlord to assault the squad that dumps out.  The last deathmark heads over to the warboss to ensure he runs off the table.

Hive guard wreck/ramshackle the empty trukk.  Warriors in the middle kill a couple boyz.  Lord assaults the russ squadron, wrecking one and shaking the other.  Overlord beats the vets in combat and runs them off.

Turn 5 sees the buggy attempt to contest the center objective, but it immobilizes just out of range.  The last boyz move for hive guard.  The last russ tank shocks the lord and warriors a bit.

Valkyrie goes flat out onto our objective (it's safe, just off the base because the terrain is too unstable).  Boyz assault hive guard and kill one and we lock.

This could be our last turn.  I move the central warriors down to save the hive guard and top warriors into terrain where the central objective is.  The overlord jumps back on his barge and heads up 12" chasing the russ.

At this point, there's only a russ, a valkyrie, an immobile buggy, and the assault.  The lance-tek has been wiffing every shot on the valk.  We fight out the assault but remained locked.  If the game ends now, it's a draw with no objectives claimed.  We let our opponents roll and the game goes on!

The russ tank shocks my warriors and remains close enough to contest.

Combat rages on.

During our turn, the lord that had been walking across the field with the immortals, that stood back up twice thanks to everliving, moves and runs far enough to claim our opponent's objective.  The command barge shakes the russ.  At this point, we call the game as we have one objective and they don't have anything that could shoot it or contest if the game went another turn.  The game ends with Crons/Nids holding 1 objective to 0.

This was a very close and fun game.  It's always nice to mix things up and try new points levels, comp formats, and team games.  I guess my list worked out with the warrior squads all surviving due to low target priority.  Dean drew most of the fire with his faster and more resilient units, killed more stuff, and scored the objective.  My counter assaults and backfield defense were pretty good though because the flamer vets would probably have walked through the four necron warriors holding our objective.  The same goes for the big units of orks, so I guess it was good that the fexes and hive guard proved to be good roadblocks.  Overall it was a good mix between our two armies.  Hopefully I would get three equally strong partners for the tournament!