It seems like every that I participate in where I have to play against Grey Knights - which is really good when it comes to having experience against Grey Knights. We are matched up this round against Zack and Paul with an IG/GK combination. I had a chance to play against Paul a few months ago with my Daemons at the Millenium invitational In contrast, Zack and I have played a number of casual games against one another but somehow managed to dodge one another at tournaments.
That is a lot of terminators and the Dreadknight with its Heavy Incinerator is one of my least favorite weapons to play against in the game...
Luckily for us on this one the mission really favors the Tyranids with:
Deployment: Dawn of War - We also get Night Fight
Primary: The Relic
Secondary: Victory Points (kill points)
Our opponent's coalition includes:
HQ
Primaris Psyker
Brother Captain
Elite
Sly Marbo
10x Psyker Battle Squad in Chimera
Troops
10x Terminators w/ 2x Psycannons
5x Strike Squad w/ 1x Psycannon
Guard Platoon w/ PCS Chimera, 3x Grenade Launchers - 1x Autocannon, Grenade Launcher
Fast Attack
Vendetta w/ 3x Lascannon
Hellhound w/ Hull Heavy Flamer
Heavy Support
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons
5x Purgation Squad w/ 4x Incinerators
We roll up our psychic powers and manage to grab a decent set with:
Tervignon 1: Iron Arm, Endurance, Enfeeble
Tervignon 2: Endurance, Life Leech, Haemorrage
Hive Tyrant: Life Leech, Endurance
BroodLord: Endurance, Warp Speed
The primaris is a pro and gets
Primaris Psyker: Terrify, Psychic Scream
We manage to win the roll for the first turn - they together roll snake eyes and we get an amazing 3.
Deployment
We run the standard Tyranid deployment with bubble wrapping gaunts - and leverage the ruins to protect the Tyrant and Hive Guard if we get seized on. The Prime is with the Carnifex and we plan to push forward a Tervignon - hopefully getting the Iron Armed one The Relic and running away.
With a 24" move and 18" range, I learned with the Tyrant to deploy him safely with some option for movement. Not shown are the Genestealers which we plan to infiltrate right next to The Relic
As is 40k tradition, here is Paul from the waist to mid shoulder. Our opponents deploy with the Hive Guard in mind, and really leave them no good targets for shooting.
Zack and Paul try to Seize but are unsuccessful.
Turn 1 - Tyranids
The Tyrant moves up and blasts the Platoon formerly by the Leman Russ. I finally remember about the directed shots and put 3 of them into the Autocannon and he makes all his saves! The other guardsmen are not as adept though and the 25% casualties causes them to flee the board. The single wound on the Tyrant came from a failed Endurance on boxcars.
The Broodlord seizes the relic and we spawn a unit of Gaunts to start making a living wall.
Turn 1 - IGK
And the Broodlord is gone! Luckily, it took a lot of shooting to remove them so we only took a few casualties on the
Turn 2 - Tyranids
Neither of our reserves arrive, but that is okay this turn.
The Tervignon runs up snags the relic and then Enfeebles the Dreadknight. We put all the gaunts, Tyrant, 2x Dakkafexes and Hive Guard into the DreadKnight and manage to take him down. The Biovores also manage a few hits on the Terminators and take down a striker.
Pictured here is our Gaunt screen designed to keep those terminators from moving around too aggressively.
We ran the screen forward even more aggressively to pin them down and try to avoid hits from the Hellhound
Turn 2 - IGK
Things are getting crowded on the IGK side of the board, but they still have most of their firepower left. Unfortunately, Sly does not mange to make it in from reserver, nor does the Vendetta.
The Hellhound/Terminators/Purgation squad do some shuffling around and prepare to take out the minor bugs. We Deny The Witch! the PBS and Primaris to be annoying this turn.
The results of the IGK shooting are...
Turn 3 - Tyranids
Really really good. The egg is the Doom which dropped down - Paul realized afterward he forgot to cast Warp Quake - ready to suck some souls out. We drop Iron Arm on the Tervi with the Relic and put Endurance on it as well.
Our shooting this turn is bad for me and all I manage is to assault and wreck the PCS Chimera. The one high point is the Terminator unit lost a number to the Doom and rolled really poorly against some Biovore hits.
Turn 3 - IGK
The Vendetta is on the way in but Sly has decided to save the day at the last moment.
Another perspective on the board - we have a lot less bodies, but the big bugs are still good to go. The PBS is on the far Chimera while that single Gaunt is hiding!
Turn 4 - Tyranids
The Ymargls come in from the center terrain and munch the rest of the Terminators. Luckily, I knocked out the Brother Captain with the Carnifex - who could not see any other model in the unit. The rerollable 2+ would have saved the unit from the Ymargls. In the far corner the Tyrant (who has taken 2 more wounds and is on his last) shoots down the Vendetta.
Turn 4-5
The Primaris Psyker is still around and with Terrify/PBS the Ymargls head for the hills. Seeking revenge the Tyrant wrecks the PBS Chimera and assaults in...
The difference between this picture....
Tyranids Victorious w/ Primary, Secondary, 3/3 Bonus points!
This was a tough one for Paul and Zack - our army brought a lot of mid range shooting and the lucky Enfeeble was what we needed to take down the dreadknight. Had the Dread had a chance to make it into assault, I think we would have been in trouble as it ate its way through our MC's - the same for the Terminators which we were able to whittle down bit by bit. A few key moments also included some Deny the Witches from us on Terrifies - a PBS perils and a pair of Deny the Witches which really saved the day. Tyranids taking Terrify leadership tests on - Carnifex for example - a 6 is a miserable time.
In the end I thought we brought a fairly interesting, balanced list to the tournament. We packed in a number of Devourers - but only duplicated the Tervignons for our selections, and took a whole range of Elite choices. The terrain was a bit more sparse than normal - but getting to place it ourselves made a big difference to provide cover where we needed it.
When all the scored - painting, sports, battle were totaled we managed to take Second Place overall. I am not sure on Sports but we had 9/15 painting and 68/90 possible battle points (from memory). Chris accepted the prize - graciously I am sure - on our behalf since I had to run home to take care of the Itty Bitty one. First place went to a Daemon army that emphasized Flamer/Screamer strengths and really kicked the tar out of all its opponents. With the new codex out, there is a great chance to explore some diverse Daemon lists.
My thoughts next week on the new Daemons - I have taken a significant amount of time to compose my thoughts on the book rather than rushing to judgement. Also, for those interested - here is the Itty-Bitty I had to run home to take care of, we played climb the stairs while Mom was out (this is the best game ever, she climbs the stairs and I put her back on the first floor. Repeat for 30 minutes, put down for nap).
Great report and game. Gratz on 2nd you guys did us proud yet again with bugs.
ReplyDeleteI love the relic mission despite it favoring some armies like nids and orks.
Something worth noting is the PBS can't use weaken resolve while embarked. It's not a shooting attack or witchfire and required LoS so its prohibited from using a fire point. Not sure if it mattered against nids but it's a unit we see pretty regularly around here.
Nice report. You guys sure stomped us; but thankfully for us Marbo and the PBS got some revenge against your big bugs to give us a moral victory. Also, not that it matters much given the ungodly number of ones I rolled in this game, including right from the get go as you so aptly noted, but a squad of ten terminators can only take two psycannons and that is all they had. I sometimes wish it were four, but the only GK squads that can take four are Purifiers and Purgators.
ReplyDeleteWhoops! Being on the receiving end of Terminaotrs - it feels like getting plastered by Psycannons.
DeleteThe PBS and Marbo were champs (in CC with TMC no less) near the end. If they had upped their game earlier, who knows how many dead Tyranids there would be. Maybe send the Psykers into CC next time instead of the Purgation squad?
Or remember Warp Quake, then shoot the Doom, and RUN AWAY from it if its not dead!!! I truly thought I would be able to take it out with a force weapon, but oh well, live and learn.
DeleteGreat BatRep. You're not kidding about the sparse terrain. I'm assuming that the tourney hosts aren't using the suggested setup from the BRB? I counted 6 pieces of terrain which is the bare minimum.
ReplyDeleteThey were following the adepticon primer mission guidelines. Normally we play with a bit more stuff on the board, but it was a small concession in an effort to help prepare the teams that were going to adepticon.
DeleteIn reality, after traveling around to different areas, and GTs, this amount of terrain was still better than most.
I guess we're lucky that Millennium has great terrain, and others bring theirs in (*Cough* Hyv3mynd *cough*).
It is possible to use only 6 pieces of terrain - but at least a few of them should be 'blocking line of sight' pieces. In general, the boards we played on really did not have many option to actually hide from the enemy. For a durable army like Tyranids it was not as bad as it could have been.
DeleteI normally like to see anywhere from 8-12 different pieces on the board - I think that provides an interesting setup with fire lanes. I also like it when there are a few 4+ pieces, plus your standard 5+ area terrain. It really makes you adjust your plans to the battlefield.