October Tournament Game #1: Dark Eldar & Eldar vs Tyranids

The October event at Millennium Games was a standard 1850pt event and would be my last chance to practice with my GT army before the big event.

My first opponent was Chris (sinistermind) and his alien inspires tyranids.


His list:
Swarmlord (biomancy)
Flyrant + devourers x2 (biomancy, warlord - outflank)
Venomthrope
Tervigon + ts, ag, 3 powers (biomancy)
Termagants x10 + devourers
Carnifexes x3 + devourers x6
Trygon
Mawloc

My List:
Lady Malys (warlord - night fight)
Baron Sathonyx
Maugan Ra
Grotesques x8 + liquifier, aberration, venom blade (Malys, Maugan here)
Kabalite Warriors x15 + blaster, splinter cannon, sybarite, venom blade
Wyches x10 + shardnet, hekatrix, agonizer
Rangers x5
Beastmasters x5 - 12 khymerae, 2 razorwings, clawed fiend (Baron here)
War Walkers x3 + scatter lasers x6
Razorwing Jetfighter
Aegis Defense Line + icarus lascannon

The mission was Big Guns Never Tire (3 objectives) and deployment was Dawn of War.  Chris rolled up Iron Arm and enfeeble (didn't use others) on the Swarmlord, Endurance on the tervigon, and Warp Speed on the flyrant.  He won the roll and took first turn. 

 He deployed a big blob with the Swarmlord, tervigon, dakkafexes, venomthrope, and devilgaunts.  The flyrant was outflanking with his warlord trait.  The trygon and mawloc were deep striking.

 I figure I can't beat him in assault if everything hits my lines, so I deploy the grotesques and warriors to tie him up as he crosses the middle.  Malys is with the grotesques to block enfeeble and Maugan has joined them so they don't run away.

My walkers are scoring in this mission so I deploy them and the wyches on my objective.  Beasts will attempt to keep the flyrant off my objective if it arrives on the left flank.  I fail to seize.

The tervigon spawns 11 gaunts (no doubles) and everything advances.  Swarmlord uses Iron Arm (and will every turn) while the tervigon gives endurance to the fexes.  I deployed back far enough to avoid all the devourer shots this turn.

The grotesques advance and Malys takes over the icarus.

Beasts advance slightly.  War walkers put 2 wounds on the tervigon.  Maugan snipes the venomthrope (ignoring cover) and earns first blood.  Warriors kill a few gaunts.

End of turn 1: DE 4vp (my objective + first blood), Nids 0vp

The mawloc arrives and eats 4 warriors.  The trygon arrives and scatters back towards the other bugs.

The tervigon spawns 10 gaunts (no doubles) and gives itself endurance.  Everything else advances.  The devilgaunts put out 30 shots and the fexes out out 36 shots and 4 grotesques go down after their 4+/5+.

My jetfighter arrives on the right flank and lines up on the fexes.  Malys leaves the grotesques and joins the warriors as I don't want her anywhere near the big bugs.  Maugan leaves the grotesques and joins the beasts which have advanced.

Here's a view from the other direction.

Rangers also arrive on the left flank and move towards the objective in Chris's DZ. The war walkers and jetfighter unload on the fexes and kill 2.  Warriors put 4 wounds on the mawloc with rapid fired poison.    Beasts multi-assault both spawned gaunt units and wipe them out.

End of turn 2:  DE 4vp, Nids 0vp

The flyant arrives on the right flank (even after swarmlord's reroll) and vector strikes my jetfighter, stripping one HP.

The Swarmlord heads for the grotesques.  The trygon and last carnifex line up on the beasts.

The tervigon spawns 10 more gaunts (doubles this time) and also heads for beasts.

The devilgaunts kill a single grotesque and the unit breaks.  The Swarmlord fails his assault now that he has to cross the ADL.

The 3 MC's assault my beasts.  I tie up the tervigon in a challenge with a beastmaster.  Maugan kills the carnifex.  I lose a couple khymerae to the trygon and hit-and-run out of there.  The mawloc assaults the kabalite warriors and dies to overwatch.

Grotesques continue to fall back.  Warriors move into double tap range.

The jetfighter zooms up to the tervigon.  Maugan and the Baron leave the beasts to join the warriors.  I now have all 3 IC's with that unit to make them immune to psychics, fearless, and able to hit-and-run if anything assaults them.  The razorwing and war walkers finish off the tervigon.  The warriors put 5 wounds on the trygon.

End of turn 3:  DE 4vp, Nids 3vp (central objective)

The flyrant swoops towards my objective and guns down 2 war walkers.  The trygon dies to overwatch from the warriors and the swarmlord fails his assault range as the ADL trips him up a second time.

My jetfighter is out of targets in its flight path so I zoom it off the table.  Warriors line up to get max shots on the Swarmlord.  They cause 3 wounds.  The beasts assault and kill the last spawned gaunt unit and consolidate onto the central objective.

End of turn 4: DE 4vp, Nids 0vp

Chris makes his final push.  The flyrant can't kill both scoring units on my objective to he swoops over to my rangers and shoots them off his objective.  The swarmlord assaults my warriors and survives overwatch, but I force him to fight the sybarite.

With that, the game ends as we have run out of time.

End of turn 5:  DE 4vp, Nids 0vp

Well that game went a lot better than I expected.  I wasn't fully sure as to how to handle the Swarmlord and fexes.  Luckily for me, the dice went in my favor several times.  The fexes failed way too many armor saves from the jetfighter's missiles and war walker shots.  The Swarmlord failed his assault move twice.  The flyrant arrived on the flank furthest form my objective even with a reroll and the rest of my army was able to tie up the tyranids in the center.  This battle also made me glad I had throw away characters to feed the tyranids in assault to minimize my own casualties.  Poisoned weapons also played a huge part against the mawloc, trygon, and t8 Swarmlord.

For more coverage of the same event, check out Calypso's blog.