Our monthly event for July was a "Welcome to 6th" event. Players were allowed to bring up to 3 different 1500pt armies to try out as many of the new rules as possible. Allies, fortifications, and player set terrain were all in use. Prize support was raffled off randomly at the end to discourage WAAC lists/behavior for the first event under the new rules.
My third opponent was "Courtney" and his newly fleshed out Necrons.
His list (approx):
Overlord + weave, shifter, scythe, scarabs, tesseract labyrinth, command barge
Court - lance-tek x1, tremor-tek x1 + harp
Immortals x5
Warriors x9 (lance-tek here)
Warriors x9 (harp-tek here)
Wraiths x6 + whips x2
Scarabs x9
Spyders x3 + prism
Doom Scythe
Aegis Defense Line + Quad Gun
I actually brought 2 lists and I hadn't played the second list yet so I decided to give it a whirl.
My list:
Tyranid Prime (warlord) + whip/sword, toxins, regen
Tyrant + wings, devourers, old adversary, regen (bio)
Hive Guard x3
Termagants x10 + devourers, mycetic spore
Termagants x10 + devourers, mycetic spore
Tervigon + claws, toxins, 3 powers (bio)
Tervigon + claws, toxins, 3 powers (bio)
Carnifex + devourers x2 (prime here)
The mission was The Scouring which also made his wraiths a scoring unit. Deployment was Vanguard Strike. Courtney deployed his aegis and we set up terrain and objectives. Courtney's 3 objectives were each 6" from his table edges and 12" apart. Mine were in a triangle a bit less castled than his. My warlord got the 12" share leadership bubble. I don't recall his. Tyrant got Iron Arm. One tervigon got Enfeeble/Warp Speed. The other got Endurance/Life Leech.
Courtney deploys both warrior units behind the aegis on 2 objectives. Immortals are behind the right ruin on the 3rd objective. This is my right flank.
On the left peak of his triangle goes the wraiths and surflord.
Prime/fex go in my left ruin. Hive guard go in the right ruin. Tyrant is at a safe distance thanks to pre-measuring. This is what terrain looks like when you run out of provided pieces before you place all your d3's. We flip the random objectives and Courtney's are 4,3,2. Mine are 3,2,1. This means Courtney is winning the game by 3 points right now and literally doesn't have to do anything except keep me out. One of his mysterious objectives is also +1 cover (behind the aegis).
+3 scarabs. Spyders and immortals move towards the center a bit.
Wraiths stay put. Surflord moves up 6". Combined shooting kills 1 hive guard.
Tyrant gets endurance and swoops up the far left flank (OOR of the quad gun). One tervigon spawns gaunts (no doubles) which fall back to hold one objective (2 of mine are grav fields, one is nothing). Hive guard pen the command barge, immobilizing it but he takes the wound on the overlord instead.
No doom scythe yet. +3 scarabs. Nothing on the right moves.
Command barge comes up 6" and dumps the overlord out 6". Shooting kills another hive gaurd. The overlord makes his assault distance on the fex/prime. He challenges, I decline, the fex punches itself and the overlord finishes it.
Tyrant gets iron arm and endurance. Enfeeble fails on the overlord. Both spores drop in and I go balls deep in necron territory as it's my only chance to threaten his objectives. Gaunts on the left kill 6 warriors and 5 stay down. They pass morale. Gaunts on the right kill 3 warriors and they pass morale. I was really hoping to get one unit to run off the table.
+ 2 more units of spawned gaunts (both doubles). One small unit falls back to hold another objective. The other surrounds the overlord and both tervigons move up. The one on top is supposed to be in the ground floor. The tyrant swoops up to the ruin the wraiths are hiding behind and shoots one down. Hive guard take another hull point odd the command barge. Believe it or not, the left tervigon hits the command barge with the cluster spines, glances it with a 6, and he fails his cover claiming the last hull point and wrecking it.
Tervigon and gaunts assault in to save my warlord. I don't challenge, he does, I decline, he removes the tervigon from combat, I cause 1 wound, he uses the labyrinth on my warlord but I pass my test and we lock.
Doom scythe arrives.
+ 3 scarabs. Everything surrounds my podded units. The wraiths come out to play hoping for a 10" assault. Shooting claims a couple gaunts in the back and a wound off a tervigon. In his DZ, I lose both units of gaunts and spores. The wraiths fail their assault distance. His overlord finally falls to the weight of poisoned gaunt attacks and doesn't get back up.
I consolidate back a bit and use a spawned unit as a screen. We each have out own objectives still so that's 10-7 necrons after first blood and warlord points. We're also running out of time.
My tyrant gets iron arm and shoots the gap and ends up within 3" of one objective and still swooping. His shooting wipes out the smaller warrior unit in the middle of that blob. The rest of my army hunkers down in the backfield as they need to hold off the wraiths.
Courtney brings his whole army except the wraiths back to shoot/kill/tarpit the flyrant. I fail my last grounding test of the shooting phase and the huge scarab mob and spyders assault in. Luckily, iron arm has made me immune to the scarabs and the spyders need 5's to hit and 5's to wound. The tyrant starts whittling away at the spyders.
Luckily, iron arm has made me immune to the scarabs and the spyders need 5's to hit and 5's to wound. The tyrant starts whittling away at the spyders.
The wraiths assault the screen unit and kill 8 of 12. Thanks to the new fearless, my survivors hold.
This is the bottom of 5 and we're out of time. One tervigon does endurance and the other does enfeeble. They assault in and kill a wraith. Right now Courtney has won due to time. Since the prizes are being raffled anyways and win/loss doesn't matter, I asked him if we could roll the dice and see what could happened if we had been comfortable enough with the rules to play in the time limit. He obliged me and rolled, and the game went on to turn 6.
Courtney swings around the doom scythe for another pass. It kills a few more gaunts off the top left objective but not enough to clear the objective. Next turn its minimum movement will leave it no targets. We were playing a mounted fire arc on the death ray as we weren't sure if it was a turret.
In assault up top, the scarabs still can't hurt the tyrant and I knock over another spyder. Down on my objectives, the tervigons drop another wraith.
I get off iron arm again on the tyrant and he goes up to 8/8 and finishes the spyders.
We roll for the end again, and the game goes on to turn 7. The tyrant is unable to chew through the massive scarab swarm and is within 3" of one objective. My tervigons finish off the wraiths with endurance and enfeeble.
At the end of 7 turns, the score was 8-7 in favor of the tyranids after secondary points. I had my 3 objectives and denied one of his with the tyrant. He had first blood and I had warlord and linebreaker.
What an intense and entertaining game! I gotta give it to Courtney, he didn't have to do anything but castle to win but he still threw a good chunk of his army at me to make it a game. I was pretty bummed with the way the random factors of the mission rolled out as it sucks to start a game down by 3 points in a tournament. I lost that game twice over, but it shows the value of sticking with it and playing it out until the end. The tyrant also saved my butt. 6's to hit are actually really easy for necrons with an abundance of tesla and rapid fire, but I made several grounding tests in a row. Iron arm by itself saved me from the scarabs as one unsaved wound would have been the last of his armor save if he was t6. Plus I was lucky enough to finish the overlord this game and the command barge. Seriously an annoying unit with 2+/3++ and scarabs.
This list definitely wasn't as fun to play as the list I used in the first two games, but it closer to the core of a competitive list I would consider. I hope you enjoy reading about the battle as much as I enjoyed playing. I feel there's still a lot to learn about 6th ed mechanics and a lot of it will hurt along the way, but I'm enjoying the journey so far.
Tesla is a real enemy to fliers. You may have less of a chance to hit, but when they do it's really going to hurt.
ReplyDeleteThis was another very good battle report and sounds like another great battle. You guys were still knee deep when we were heading out the door and buying some paints. Definitely worth playing the whole game out.
Yeah, not surprising that necrons have the best flyers and their tesla destructors are some of the best anti-flyer weapons in the game.
DeleteDoom scythes are really nastly now if you don't bring the quad gun. being able to come on 36" and fire a 12" death ray means they can literally hit anywhere on the table when they arrive.
It was worth playing out tho I have no illusions. If this had been a serious tournament he would have played it much safer and I would have lost.
Did you ever see an opportunity to enfeeble the Wraiths and shoot them with the Tyrant? I hope to use that trick, it seems like it would take them down in short order. Sounds like a good tight game, and I dig the Necrons Red and White paint scheme.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to write these up with pictures and everything, nicely done.
Not really. Enfeeble was on a tervigon which was deployed back a bit from my DZ line. His wraiths were also back a bit from his DZ line making them well over 24" apart. He didn't advance his wraiths until his overlord was in my face which was when I brought up the tervigons. By the time I started using enfeeble on them, the tyrant was deep in his DZ.
ReplyDeleteRumors being what they are I try not to get too excited. But word is that the Developers indicated they are aware of the Tyranid's current plight and hope to address it "soon." This has to mean some kind of White Dwarf supplement. Separate rumor is that Chaos, Tyranids and someone else are getting a Flyer release next month. Sounds like maybe this flyer might be an anti-flyer flyer. Hoping so.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna go with the harpy model. Best case scenario with a new weapon option with skyfire. If we get a fully new unit, I'd be speachless considering how little love GW has given Nids over the past 3 years.
DeleteCan't wait to see that Tyranid flyer - if it will be other then the Harpy. Harpy should also get some amendment as currently it is really not very good imo. Tyranids being the premiere Xenos army of 40k? I can't understand why GW treats them with so little love... still many things are missing from the codex, still no Pods, still no use for the Pyrovore and so on. Let's hopethat will change - I'd also be really speachless if we did receive anything new via WD. I just live my Nidzand I want to use them, but first I want them to be usable :)
DeleteOne of the rumors I heard what that it would be a 'double' model (Trygon/Mawloc or Tfex/Terv) In this case Harpy/NewFlyer.
DeleteParasite should be noticeably smaller than a Harpy, that would be an awkward double.
how can the prime attach onto the fex? I thought 6th still had the rule stating IC's can not join units of 1 model?
ReplyDeleteAn IC can't join a unit if it only ever can consist of one model. You can buy a unit of 1-3 Carnifexes, so an IC is eligible to join them.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little bit excited, but can't in all honesty truly expect something soon. The following bits are what have me at least somewhat hopeful: a recent Faeit post mentions both Doom and Parasite being done. From another Faeit post: "Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost. Phil said that the quality of the new Codex’s far surpasses the paperback’s of 5th and beyond (I wonder how many are finished!?)
ReplyDeleteLastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion."
Having seen this year until now it is really hard to believe GW would want to make one release each month. That would be just too nice. But maybe with 6th ed. they realize that releasing 2 codices per year and releasing no models for half of those codices are really, really bad.
DeleteNecrons are a prime example as the currently have official models for EVERYTHING in the codex - and all is done within one year of codex release! Dark Eldar are second best with missing special characters and Voidraven being rumoured to get released until November this year.
Maybe GW has learned from the mistakes of the delayed release of the Tervigon / Tyrannofex and the TWC kits and is going to release everything for a new codex in a reasonable amont of time after the codex is done.
I really like that the development team knows that Nidz need a boost, I just wonder how will they carry out that boost and when.
I don't know if you've mentioned it, but I spy some new models painted in your old color scheme. Have you abandoned the new one (ice-nids) and gone back to the old one?
ReplyDeleteI do like your old scheme (simple, menacing and original) but the new one is nice too.
Haven't opened my metallic green in 15 months lol. My tyranid collection had gotten quite large by May 2011. I had been buying and playtesting nearly every model in the range except pyrovores in preparation for the ATC. Anything that was painted and based I used in a tournament in 2011. Everything that was painted and not based stayed in the basement.
DeleteI'm still moving forward with the new scheme, but understand I equally enjoy painting my DE and GK as well as building terrain so it will me a long term project. I did pick up the new flyrant model as I like it so much better than my half assed conversion with balrog wings.