Tyranid Project - Part 6 - Game 1 vs. Blood Angels

I'd arranged for a couple of people to come over to mine on Sunday so I could get those annoying test games out of the way without too many witnesses about to see any of my monumental cock-ups (and I made a few as you'll see, lol).

I'm splitting these into 2 Blog posts as they're fairly long (with the added benefit that I don't have to think of anything to post tomorrow, lol).

I was using my Test list detailed here

Mike was using his Blood Angels list, which looked like this,

1750 Pts - Mikes Blood Angels

HQ: Captain Tycho (1#, 175 pts)

1 Captain Tycho @ 175 pts

HQ: Librarian (1#, 125 pts)

1 Librarian @ 125 pts (...in Power Armour; Blood Lance; Fear of the Darkness)

1 ...in Power Armour (Jump Pack)

Elite: Sternguard Veteran Squad (8#, 265 pts)

6 Sternguard Veteran Squad @ 265 pts (Combi-Meltagun x2; Combi-Plasmagun x1; Rhino)

1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Power Fist x1)

1 Rhino

Elite: Sanguinary Priest (1#, 105 pts)

1 Sanguinary Priest @ 105 pts (Brother Corbulo)

1 Brother Corbulo

Elite: Chaplain (1#, 100 pts)

1 Chaplain @ 100 pts (...in Power Armour)

1 ...in Power Armour

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 270 pts)

9 Tactical Squad @ 270 pts (Flamer; Lascannon; Razorback)

1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)

1 Razorback (Lascannon and TL Plasmagun)

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 245 pts)

9 Tactical Squad @ 245 pts (Meltagun; Missile Launcher; Razorback)

1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Power Weapon x1)

1 Razorback

Troops: Death Company (10#, 270 pts)

1 Death Company @ 270 pts (Death Company; Death Company; Death Company; Rhino)

1 Death Company (Power Fist)

1 Death Company (Power Weapon)

7 Death Company

1 Rhino

Troops: Assault Squad (8#, 194 pts)

6 Assault Squad @ 194 pts (Meltagun)

1 Assault Marine with Meltagun

1 Sergeant (Lightning Claw x2)

Total Roster Cost: 1749

Me and Mike have differing ideas about list building.

I tend to build lists around the principle of what is generally referred to as 'Spamming'. Basically I find a unit I think is the best in that particular Force Organisation Chart slot and cram in as many as I'm allowed.

Mike tends to include more variety in his units than I do. They do however all have enough versatility so they can handle any task given them.

It's worth noting at this point that 'Duality' in lists is always worth having as it makes your opponents target priority much more difficult. That discussion however needs a blog post all of it's own...

Game 1.

The mission we rolled was 'Annihilation' with a 'Spearhead' deployment.

I 'proxied' a 'Rifleman' Dreadnought as my 2nd Tyrannofex and a couple of tentacle Chaos Spawn as Lash Whip Hive Guard. The armless Trygon will be my Swarmlord when it's finished but for now I just used it without the arms.

Mike won the roll off and elected to go first.

Note: I'll post the picture first with the explanation afterwards and it'll hopefully make some sense that way.

Mike combat squadded (not sure if that's even a real word) and put the heavy weapon halves in the 2 buildings at the rear of his deployment zone. The Rhino's and Razorbacks were deployed as close as possible to the front of his deployment zone. The Librarian joined the jump pack Assault Squad and the unit was put into reserve ready to deep strike in later.

Lacking any particularly useful cover in my corner I deployed the Termagants to give my Hive Guard a cover save. The Swarmlord and Tyrant Guard deployed right at the front supported by the Tervigons to try and enhance some units as I went along. Tyrannofex's went on each Flank. In retrospect I would have been better deploying the 2nd Tyrannofex closer to the other units.

A closer view of Mikes deployment.

Mike drove the 2 Rhino mounted units full speed ahead and popped smoke. The Razorbacks moved 12" so they could still fire one weapon each. I threw a few Termagants forward hoping I could destroy the Death Company Rhino and then lead the Death Company inside where I wanted them to go. Unfortunately I only managed to immobilise and disarm it, this I thought would still be okay as if the Death Company wanted to do anything they'd have to get out and the Termagants were still the closest unit.

Mike then fucked up my plan completely by blocking the way with his vehicles which guided the Death Company nicely towards my Tyrannofex instead. I forgot to give my Termagants 'Feel no Pain' via Catalyst so they died to shooting (and a Flamer) anyway. The Sternguard used 'Wounds on 2's' ammo to kill something which judging from the big gap was either the Tervigon or the Hive Guard (I forget which). The Tyrannofex took 3 wounds to a combination of heavy weapons fire.

The Swarmlord gets into combat but fluffs his rolls a little and only kills a few Sternguard. I completely forgot to use 'Paroxysm' which would have made a lot of difference. I also forgot to give myself 'Preferred Enemy', Doh.

Over in the other corner the Assault marines have dropped in to stop my Tyrannofex from sniping transports for the easy kill points. My shooting kills 4 but they don't run away and a slightly lucky six to wound enables the Librarian to 'Force Weapon' the Tyrannofex to death.

Before moving on to attempt to do the same thing to a Tervigon.

Apparently Death Company are much less scary in later turns of combat, especially when your T6 with a 2+ save ;-)

My lack of experience with the Tyranid book makes both this Swarmlord combat and the one in the 2nd game a lot more tedious than it should be. There will now be a brief interlude while I explain why I'm a fucking idiot.

'I'm a fucking idiot' break No. 1

If I'd have bothered to read the Bone Sabre entry I would have realised that they cause instant death. Which means rather than try and chip away at the unit I should have just split my attacks between the characters and got the biggest threats out of the way first and then butchered the squad. This would have enabled me to finish that combat about 3 turns earlier and I could have then helped the Tyrannofex slaughter the Death Company which in turn meant I could have then destroyed the Immobilised Rhino before it fixed itself and ran away...

The Assault Marines in the top left hand corner have killed the Tervigon (this may have been another unfortunate Force Weapon casualty). The Swarmlord has finally got around to killing the Sternguard just leaving the characters alive. The Tyrannofex has been consistently killing an average of 1 Death Company every other combat phase. Unfortunately at this point we now need another 'I'm a fucking idiot' break.

'I'm a fucking idiot' break No. 2

I had been giving my Swarmlord Preferred enemy every one of my assault phases (apart from the first one that i forgot) but had completely forgotten that the power says 'unit' and I could have been rerolling for the Tyrant Guard he'd joined as well.

During the turn that I forgot to take any pictures of I blew up a Razorback and the squad inside failed their pinning check which was an unexpected bonus. The 3 surviving Assault Marines kill a couple of Hive Guard and my Swarmlord and Tyrannofex continue to chip away at their respective opponents.

This bastard keeps refusing to die (which if I'd have read the Bone Sabres rules properly he already would be).

Fortunately nobodies luck lasts forever...

The Swarmlord butchers the Squad that just got out of that Razorback (I'm not sure why they did that now I think about it, but there must have been a reason as Mike doesn't usually make silly mistakes) and attempts to get close enough to kill those 3 Marines in the open.

The Razorback does me a favour and gets itself immobilised. The Librarian is apparently getting tired and actually fails to roll a 6 for his Force Weapon. Of course being as the Tyrannofex is only on one Wound anyway he wont need his Force Weapon ability at all..Still needs that 6 though ;-)

I'm a couple of Kill Points behind at this point so I really need to kill everything in this picture to win.
My next target for the Swarmlord will be entirely decided by the distance I get for my movement which fortunately turns out to be far enough to kill those bastard Marines.

I thought I better show what was going on in this corner. These guys have the easiest job ever vs. my army as they just hide in the buildings and take wounds of Monstrous Creatures with their Missile Launcher and Lascannon respectively.

I lose the Hive Guard and 2 more Wounds off the Swarmlord trying to get back to this bit of the board as the Librarian has annoyingly rolled that 6 he needed and killed the Tyrannofex. I attempt to multi-charge both the Razorback and the Librarian but unfortunately the Librarian is 1/4 inch too far away. I then penetrate the Razorback 4 times but only get 1's and 2's for damage.

Next turn the Librarian runs away tactically withdraws and the remaining heavy weapons kill off the Swarmlord who only had one wound left anyway.

Tabled on turn 7,

8 or 9 Kill Points to Mikes 11...

Post game analysis.

Well the obvious problem was that I kept forgetting to do things, though in my 2nd game I remember a lot more of them and that sort of thing is only to be expected when your using something new I suppose. Though that's not much of an excuse I'd be the first to admit.

A more thorough reading of the Tyranid rules is a definite must before my next games.

Swapping the Tyrannofex Stinger Salvo for Cluster spines worked well as a chance of hitting lots of infantry with the Large Blast is going to more often than not generate more wounds than the 4 S5, AP4 shots that the Stinger Salvo is going to get me, especially once you take BS3 into account. Saying that though, I may keep the Stinger Salvo on the Tervigons as they may be semi-useful for taking pot shots at Landspeeders and the like, plus It's easier for me to decide which is best if I have them both to compare against one another in the same list ;-)

The free upgrade to Dessiccator Larvae on the Thorax Swarm also turned out to be the best choice as wounding on 2's is always nice to have and Mathshammer would tend to agree.

Most of my monumental cock-ups are listed in the actual report but I'm sure you smart arses can find a few more.

The floor is now open for (constructive) criticism...