Batrep: DE/Eldar vs Tyranids 1500pts

I had a chance to have my friend Gerry over for a casual game this week.  He's been using my tyranids to get a feel for the 6th ed mechanics before he builds an army of his own.

Here's a shot of the table and terrain.  I had set it up earlier so we use the "narrative" setting rather than the alternating method.  We rolled up The Scouring and Hammer/Anvil deployment.

Tyranid List (1500)
Tyrant + wings, devourers (hemorrhage, warp speed) (warlord - stealth, MTC: ruins)
Hive Guard x3
Termagants x30
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, 3 powers, cluster spines (warp speed, iron arm, life leech)
Warriors x3 + barbed strangler
Genestealers x20 + broodlord w/ scytals (life leech, enfeeble)
T-fex + rupture cannon, cluster spines, desiccator larvae

I don't own many eldar, but I wanted to try the new rules out.  Our local July tournament is 1500pts battle + painting + comp so this is the list I'm practicing with for the event.

Dark Eldar + Eldar (1500)
Archon + shadow field, venom blade, haywire grenades (warlord: reroll reserves)
Baron Sathonyx
Farseer + spirit stone of A.. (fortune!, prescience, dominate) [haemonculi conversion proxy]
Kabalite Warriors x15 + splinter cannon, blaster
Wyches x5 + haywire grenades, shardnet
Venom + extra cannon
Rangers x5
Beastmasters x5 + khymerae x12, razorwings x2, clawed fiend
Razorwing Jetfighter (stock weapons)+ flickerfield
Talos (stock)
War Walkers x3 + scatter lasers x6
ADL + icarus lascannon

Gerry won the roll off and made me take the first turn.  Night fight was in effect.

I put beasts up front with the baron and farseer attached alongside the talos.  My archon was attached to the 15 warriors and in b2b with the icarus.  My flyer was reserved and rangers outflanking.

 Gerry deployed the big gaunt blob up front screening the hive guard.  Tfex, tervigon, tyrant, and warriors hid behind a big BLoS wall.  20 genestealers were outflanking.

We flipped the objectives and for once, it was an even split!  We both had 2pt and 3pt objectives with the 1pt and 4pt ones in the middle.

War walkers get prescience, beasts get fortune and advance.  My venom inflicts 3 wounds on hive guard, but they save every wound from war walkers thanks to night fight.  The tyranid warriors also make all saves from the talos' cannon.

Tyrant gets warp speed and swoops up to flank my beasts.  Tervigon gets iron arm and advances behind the gaunts and hive guard.  Tfex pops out and warriors pull back.  The tyrant unloads all his dakka into beasts and a precision shot ID's a razorwing flock.  I lose 1 khymerae but fortuned saves pass the rest.  The Tfex bingo's my venom despite night fight and the ensuing explosion kills 3 wyches and 5 warriors! (first blood).  I pass all pinning and morale tests.

Turn 2:

My flyer arrives heading for the tyrant.  My rangers arrive deep in his flank and hide behind the jungle/hill.  Beasts get fortune and walkers get prescience.  Everything shuffles around.  I form a wall on the far side with beasts and the talos to keep the tyrant from landing and assaulting my warriors.  My flyer puts 3 wounds on the tyrant despite evading and my archon on the icarus finishes it off (slay the warlord).  Walkers fire on hive guard and his saves are hot again, leaving 1 model surviving.

Tervigon gets iron arm and spawns 9 gaunts (no doubles) which head for the outflanking rangers.  Tfex advances while the last hive guard pulls back.  Genestealers fail to arrive.  I lose around 6 khymerae and 3 wounds off the clawed fiend despite fortune (I failed about 75% of my saves even after rerolls!).  The tfex also hits my flyer once but only destroys a missile.

Turn 3:

Beasts get fortune, my flyer gets prescience, and the tfex gets dominate.  My warrior blob moves up a bit and 2 surviving wyches hunker down on my backfield objective.  My flyer, war walkers, talos, and warriors all fire on the tervigon and score 4 wounds.  Missile blasts and beastmasters drop about half of the big gaunt blob.  Beasts then assault and I lose 4 more khymerae (fortuned invulns failing left and right again), but still manage to win combat.  I guess I should have put the baron up front for the 2++ rerollable.

20 genestealers arrive in my backfield.

The tervigon saves its warp charge for life leech.  It spawns 9 more gaunts (no doubles again) and both spawned units head for my rangers.  They unload fleshborers, cluster spines, and life leech.  I go to ground and make every save.  Gaunts then assault and my rangers are wiped out.  The tfex fails his leadership test to fire for dominate.  My beasts finish off the big gaunt blob and consolidate towards the far edge.

Turn 4:

 Beasts get fortune and prescience, tfex gets dominate.

Talos heads for the genestealers.  I elect to fly the jetfighter off the table.  My warrior blob abandons the icarus and pulls away from the genestealers.  War walkers finish the tervigon.  The explosion kills 7 of the 9 spawned gaunts in the closest unit.  Beasts fire on the tyranid warriors but he only fails 1 save.  Talos uses focus fire and drops 3 genestealers. 

 Beasts declare a disordered assault on the warriors and tfex and I lose a few to overwatch.  I'm able to wipe out the warriors and inflict 1 wound to the tfex.

The genestealers make for my talos.  Tfex is locked in combat.  The unit of 2 gaunts passes their IB test and makes for the central 4pt objective.  The unit of 9 gaunts fail IB.  The hive guard passes, but fails to wound my talos.

Genestealers assault the talos and I drop 1 to overwatch.  He has 5 attacks with the broodlord and 30 from genestealers in range and only scores 1 rend.  My talos kills 3 genestealers and the unit breaks and runs!

At this point, my opponent concedes.  Here's what the situation is:

Regardless of the tfex combat, my unit will hit-and-run out at the end.  I then have my returning flyer, beasts, warriors, and war walkers to make sure the genestealers are finished off.  He has no synapse left, a unit of 2 gaunts, a unit of 9 gaunts, a dominated tfex, and a single hive guard.  I'm sitting on 2 objectives (2pt, 3pt) with scoring beasts controlling the center (possibly linebreaker), and slay the warlord.  He conceded due to the lateness of the hour, but my remaining units, firepower, and mobility were enough to inflict serious casualties and keep him off objectives.

This was a really fun game, and very close in the beginning.  I failed sooo many fortuned saves on my beasts and gave up first blood and 9 models to a single tfex shot when he pegged my venom.  Losing the flyrant on turn 2 hurt, but in my experience they either die very early or survive to win the game.  I could have used my vehicle mobility better, but that's what the practice is for.  In his shoes, I would have infiltrated the genestealers for early pressure and enfeeble, but outflanking in hammer/anvil games with 6 objectives is a solid choice also.  I really like the new war walkers with bs4, 5++, and battle focus.  That mid strength, high RoF is just what dark eldar need.  I got lucky rolling up fortune, but there's enough good powers between fate, divination, and telepathy to make anything work.

Hope you enjoyed the read.  I'll have another practice game with the list this weekend at Parkhammer and then 3 batreps from the July tournament shortly thereafter.