Heroic stand of a Wych

I played a game against Tyranids yesterday (1500 points, Purge, DoW, +1S from drugs, no one had useful Warlord traits) and since I have no pictures, I won't make a full BatRep with pictures. Basically, I shot the big things early and then shot up the other things later. The Nyd player had bad dice early on and I could not make a jink to save my life, but he couldn't deal with that many poison weapon shots and I won. Details in the longer TL/DR version later in the post. What I want to share is the adventures of my wych squad- 9 girls in a Raider, hexatrix, and a haemi. Be warned -- my 'nyd identification and spelling are awful.

On my right flank, the Nyds had two long double lines of hormagants (sp?). Each double line was a 20 bug unit with the rear line having poison sacs and claws (re-rolled 1's to hit and re-rolled missed wounds). These things were the closest to my firebase squad of 20 warriors and the warlord haemi and I did not want him to melee the warriors and take their guns out of play so I brought up the wychs. I figured the wyches had no tanks to go after so I was willing to sacrifice them and their 2VP to keep the bugs off my shooters for a turn or two longer. On T1, they moved up along the right table edge. On T2, they parked off the right end of the double line, disembarked, liquified 4 bugs with poison and then disorderedly charged into the flank of both of the bug squads... 40 bugs vs 9 wyches and a Haemi. Close combat went through all of T2. At first the wyches did well, winning the combats in round two as they were able to kill enough bugs to keep the bug attacks down, and since the bugs at the far end of the line took a while to consolidate within range to close combat the wyches. The top to T3 started to change this strongly in the bugs favor and by the end of the top of T3 (my turn), I was down to my last wych. I was not unhappy with this since I knew she would die on the Nyd player's T3 close combat phase, leaving me to shoot up the remaining bugs with my warriors. Then, in the Nyd T3, the lone wych managed to kill 1 bug. She then proceeded to make all but 2 of her saves and then FNPed both of the save she missed, winning combat. Since the consolidation had pulled the Nyds out of synapse, they had to morale check and both units failed. We had to discuss how to work the break-away rolls a bit, but in the end, the single wych managed to catch and kill both bug squads!

At this point the nyds were down to 2 Zoanthropes, 10 termigaunts(?), its warlord warrior, and a drop pod, all on the far left. I had a 10 warrior raider squad sans raider, a talos, a wych and her raider, and the 20 warrior squad with the Haemi warlord. The Nyds gave up.

Anyway, that wych is getting the good drugs from now on - she earned it.


Here is a bit more detail - feel free to skip if you think it is TL/DR.

For both of us, it was really our first time facing off against the opposing army with the armies we were playing. His list was on the order of (I don't know the proper names).

A tunneling MC thing with S6 melee.
A pregnant MC thing that could produce some kind of small bug
3 zoanthropes in a drop pod
A unit of 10 small shooty things with like 3 shots each.
A unit of 3 warriors along with an HQ/warlord that looked like another warrior with bigger blades
A unit of 2 hive guard with some kind of large S6 or S8 gun.
And then the 2 x 20 bug units of hormagaunts, one with poison sacks.

I was running the following (which is not optimal but limited to what I have models for - for instance I have no venom models).
1 Heami with a 'shard and liquifer with wyches)
1 Haemi warlord with a hexrifle (in large foot squad)
9 wyches with hexatrix w/ venom blade and grenade launcher in a raider with aethersails and DL
20 warriors with 2x SC
2 x 10 warriors in raiders with 1 SC, 1 blaster, and splinter racks
1 Talos with TL SC and TL liquifier
1 Ravager with triple DL
5 Trueborn w/ 2 DL and otherwise with Carbines


I had the option to go first and chose to do so with it being Purge. On my T1, I shot and killed the pregnant MC thing before it got to play with its psychic powers, put 2 wounds on the tunneling MC, and killed a warrior or two. He responded by dropping one warrior raider. On my T2, I killed the hive guard and another 1 or two warriors and assaulted the hormagaunts. On his T2, he podded in the 'thropes on the far left (out of range of the 20 man warriors splinter cannons) and trashed the Ravager, shot his termigaunts at the downed raider warriors causing the last guy to break and run off the table. On T3, I killed the tunneling thing and all his warriors but the warlord. On his turn, he hid his warlord taking him out of synapse with his hormagaunts, downed the other raider that had warriors in it, and had his hormagaunts break and get wiped out.

Had we gone to T4, I'd have shot up his termigaunts with my foot raiders and the 20 warrior raider squad. The wych would have reboarded her raider which would have maneuvered to shoot its DL at the warlord and line up for a T5 assault on the warlord by the surviving now furious charge and fearless wych. Whether I made the assault would have depended on the point totals at that point; it would have been risking 1 VP for a chance of taking out 2 VP. In T5, the 20 warrior squad would have shot at the zoanthropes if they came into their range. If we had gone to T6, I simply would have probably avoided the 'thropes as much as I could and sniped at them or the pod with the raider's DL if I could do that without getting into range to be shot back at by their psy powers. If they had gotten into range of the 20 warrior squad, obviously I would have sot at them with that and the hexrifle as well.

I forgot a couple things during the game, the most important of which were the fact that my stationary SC's should have had 6 shots instead of 4 and the fact that my S4 hekatrix should have been able to reroll wounds with her venom blade since she had more strength than the 'gaunts' toughness (at least that how we though poison worked). I probably should have also focused more attacks on the venom sac 'gaunts, but for the first turn of close combat I didn't realize they were different (not good at 'nyd WYSIWYG recognition). The Talos was my back stop close combat interceptor except it did not get to intercept anything (I wasn't going to pile it into the poison sac 'gaunts which was all that ever came into its threat window for assault), so it mostly provided very valuable TL SC fire support. The hexrifle did a great job of hitting and a great job of rolling 1's to wound.

I think the biggest surprise for the 'nyd player was when we realized my wyches had initiative on his hormagaunts. From my list and what I told him of my shooting, he already knew the poison weapons were going to be a huge pain for him.

I learned stuff which was ultimately the goal of every battle.

Thanks for sharing! Haven't faced tyrannids with my DE yet myself, but looking forward to it.

Sounded like a great game, go wych sweeping advance go!

Malevolent-Storm wrote:

I the fact that my S4 hekatrix should have been able to reroll wounds with her venom blade since she had more strength than the 'gaunts' toughness (at least that how we though poison worked)

She would have been able to re-roll to wound even without the +1 S as the poison rules states you get the re-rolls if your S is equal or greater than their toughness and gaunts are T3.

Thanks for sharing the pain.

I love the image of that last wych, dodging, weaving, shrugging off hits, and hacking apart tyranids until she was swimming alone in a sea of gore... that's what we play the game for!

Thanks for the narrative!