Having finally repaired my army after the case incident, I think it's high time for another batrep, don't you?
Mission: The Scouring
Deployment: Vanguard Strike (I seem to roll this a lot...)
I'm using an identical list to when I fought the daemons 2 games ago:
Archon, Huskblade, Venom Blade, Shadowfield, PGL
Baron Sathonyx
4 Incubi, Klaivex, Dual-cannon Venom
3 Trueborn, 3 Blasters, Dual-cannon Venom
5 warriors (no upgrades), Dual-cannon Venom
10 warriors, splinter cannon, raider with splinter racks (lance)
10 wyches, hekatrix, venom blade, shardnet/impaler, raider with grisly trophies (lance)
10 hellions (no upgrades)
5 scourges, 2 haywire blasters
Razorwing, Flickerfield
Razorwing, Flickerfield
Ravager (tri-lance)
My warlord trait was -1 to opponent's reserves, and combat drug was Splintermind (Pain Token)
And I'm facing none other than Tyrant Lord 73, who some may remember from my first proper batrep in the Dark Eldar face-off, this time using his Tyranids!
Flying Hive Tyrant, 2 twin-linked devourers
Flying Hive Tyrant, 2 twin-linked devourers
10 gants
10 gants
Tervigon
Tervigon, Scything Talons
15 Gargoyles, upgrades
15 Gargoyles, upgrades (the ones that give them poisoned and something else)
Trygon, Scything talons
Zoanthrope
2 Biovores
2 Hive Guard, s8 guns
Bit hazy on all the upgrades, I'm sure I'll be corrected if needs be!
Tyranid warlord trait was Night Attacker, so he wisely chose to make it a daytime fight. Psychic powers; both flyrants got endurance and haemorrhage, zoanthrope got enfeeble and endurance, one tervigon got life leech, warp speed and haemorrhage, the one with scything talons got enfeeble, life leech and haemorrhage. I won the roll for deployment sides/objective placement, but the nids won the roll for first turn.
Overall deployment. I have to worry about scoring Gargoyles as well, otherwise this wouldn't be nearly as threatening. Warlord flyrant is on the far side, near the biovores and hive guard. He's deployed everything so as to not get shafted on reserve rolls by my warlord trait, and generally to give me more to deal with. We're playing the tall towers as bastions, 4 fire points per facing (the windows on each wall).
My deployment. Not sure if it'll pay off. I've deployed my venoms all out of range of his long-range shooty, as I'll need those. Both raiders are empty, wyches in terrain on an objective (in case it goes bang), and warriors in the bastion with their raider behind them. Archon and incubi are behind the bastion in their venom, and the blasterborn are in theirs near the wyches. There's also an empty venom, as I've chosen to reserve the 5 man warrior squad on the basis that there's 2 objectives within claiming distance of my table edge (turned out to be the 1 and the 4). Razorwings are obviously in reserve, but I also chose to keep baron and hellions in reserve (trying to pull a flanking manoeuvre), and the scourges, being scoring and a fairly easy kill point.
Pro: DE match up well against nids
I'm fast and don't care about his high toughness
Razorwings should make an ungodly mess of gaunts
Con: Yet to play against Nids with DE, so not 100% certain how to use my advantage
Opponent is a DE player, so knows what to target and how to play against me
High scoring objectives have a ton of nids between me and them
Almost his entire army is scoring, and he can make more
I roll to seize and fail! Objectives are mysterious... the dead centre is sabotaged so never explodes, the one with the wyches is re-roll 1s when shooting, the one in the open is skyfire, the 4 pointer is +1 cover saves, and the other 2 are nothing.
Turn 1 - Nids
Endurance gets cast on many things, the non-warlord flyrant rolling snake eyes and losing a wound. Unsurprisingly, everything moves up as fast as possible, the tervigons both spawning more gants (one on the left gets 10, one on the right gets a lot, 14 I think?) - neither ruptures. Run rolls are less than stellar, and the army almost uniformly gets to the halfway point. Warlord flyrant has exposed himself to get close to my army, and manages to wreck the wych raider for First Blood. The explosion and biovore shooting kills a few wyches.
Turn 1 - DE
I shuffle around, mostly staying in my deployment zone because I have range to things. I take a pot shot at the zoanthrope with a lance but either miss or fail to wound. I get lucky with snap-shots and knock the flyrant out of the sky with my first unit, but he makes a lot of saves once I start shooting at him - it takes all bar one venom and the ravager before the blasterborn finally finish the job, gaining me Slay the Warlord. Lastly, said venom and ravager combine their firepower to strip 4 wounds off the farthest away tervigon.
End of 1. So far, so good, but there's going to be loads more to come...
Turn 2 - Nids
Both tervigons spawn a massive number, and only one ruptures - at this point, there's almost 60 gants on the table for me to deal with! The wounded tervigon retreats to safety, and one unit of gants goes to objective camp. Everything else streaks forwards, and spreads out to avoid blasts. The remaining flyrant dakkas down my archon's venom, killing an incubus in the explosion, but fortunately they aren't pinned. Remaining shots don't do anything of importance.
Turn 2 - DE
I roll for reserves and only get one razorwing and the hellions... not great, but workable. I bring the razorwing in from my corner to deal with the hordes, and the hellions in near the gargoyles - would have liked support with them. Everything else moves as appropriate, and the archon and incubi approach the gargoyles that have run to the front as I've seen a sneaky plot. The razorwing bursts a lot of gants, almost wiping out one unit and denting a second. One venom manages to sneak two unsaved wounds onto the tervigon that only has two wounds left, but he makes both FnP rolls. Baron and hellions manage to kill a mighty 4 gargoyles with their splinter pods. The other venom thins out the nearer gargoyles. Finally, archon and incubi charge, as the pile in move of the gargoyles will tow them out of synapse range! Archon manages to kill a lot, but the incubi and klaivex decide that swatting flies is beneath them and just sort of waive their klaives around, slicing the occasional one by accident. Gargoyles can't get through the power armour, fail morale, and are cut down!
End of turn 2. And I made that much of a dent with only half my reserves... 19 out of 30 gargoyles down, 16/17 out of 20 gants.
Turn 3 - Nids:
The swarm approaches! Trygon comes after archon and incubi, flyrant goes after the razorwing. Zoanthrope and tervigon move forwards to the centre, whilst the other terv, gants and gargoyles go after the hellions. All the gants on the far side swarm the objective. Shooting drops the razorwing (doesn't scatter), and kills 2 incubi. The biovores and gargoyles kill some hellions, and I think the hive guard help. The gargoyles charge the hellions, and I simply can't roll to wound to save my life; everyone except baron dies, and his shadowfield shorts out. Discretion's the better part of valour and he flees the field. A unit of gants and the trygon charge into my archon and incubi; archon swings first but doesn't get the 6 to instant-kill the trygon, and gets eaten for Slay the Warlord. Weight of numbers brings down the incubi.
Turn 3 - DE:
It's looking grim, but I have my reserves to try and turn the tide with! The Razorwing....doesn't show up. The scourges....don't show up. And the warriors...don't show up. Smeg. Ah well, go down fighting! Raider and ravager move out; I brainfart and think the range on a blaster is 24 so position the venom 24" from the tervigon. Then realise they can't shoot it, and am forced to waste the venom to make it explode, and takes down a LOT of the nearby gants in the process. There's 3 units, including 1 of just 1... that one dies, another unit is reduced to 4, and the final unit is considerably thinned. I manage to kill some from another squad with the blasterborn, but that's about it. Warriors fire from the bastion to try and thin out the swarm, and the lances from raider and ravager put some wounds on the tervigon. Can't remember what the other venom does; I think it also tries to get the tervigon but fails miserably. Might have just killed gants.
At this point, I'm convinced I'm going to get eaten. And will be having a frank chat with whoever's stupid idea it was to keep everything in reserve *goes in search of a mirror*
Turn 4 - Nids:
Gotta think about this to get everything straight... some out of synapse units lurk. Largest remaining unit of gants goes towards the wyches; grey gants go for the central objective and are backed up by the zoanthrope. Gargoyles sit on the 4-pointer. Hive tyrant flies down and kills a venom with dakka, whilst the hive guard advance and kill the other one, killing one blasterborn. Trygon goes for and kills the ravager. Gants fortunately fail their charge against the wyches.
Turn 4 - DE:
I have 10 warriors in a building that can come out and claim the 1 point objective if necessary. 6 or so wyches left near a 2 point objective. Gargoyles are on a 4 point objective (those need shifted), 4 gants are out of synapse on a 3 pointer, and two larger units are on a 2 and 3 respectively, both synapse-d by the zoanthrope. I bring everything on in the corner near the objective. Razorwing kills all but 4 from the squad on the central objective, and wounds the zoanthrope. Blasterborn fire 2 shots at the 4 gants in the open; only need to kill 1 and they'll probably run away, being out of synapse... both shots miss. Warriors kill a decent number of gargoyles, and then I do something massively stupid. I try the scourges into the tervigon. Logic is if I can kill it, it can't score; and the gargoyles will be out of synapse and give me the edge. In retrospect, I should have finished the gargoyles and tried for the tervigon next turn. I get it to 2 wounds left, but that's not enough. I could fire the warriors at it, but use them for their original purpose of thinning out the gants near the wyches. Wyches charge and do ok, 2 are left by the time I do the hekatrix...who misses with all her attacks. Fail.
Bottom of 4. Not looking good.
Turn 5 - Nids
Flyrant charges after the wyches. Tervigon goes for and wrecks my raider, and the trygon charges the building, killing some guys inside. Gants and zoan consolidate on the central objective (3" away so that it doesn't kill them if it explodes). Hive guard shoot at the 2 blasterborn, and one makes his cover save and doesn't run (I didn't go to ground because I need them for my cunning last-ditch plan). Biovores take this excellent opportunity to score 2 direct hits and cause 5 wounds on my scourges, fortunately I make 2 6++ saves (go go gadget ghostplate armour!) and they don't flee). Gargoyles shoot two warriors. Flyrant misses with his attacks, as the wyches cut down the last few gants.
Turn 5 - DE
It'll be tight, but I can pull the win if everything goes right. Firstly, warriors disembark to claim the measly one point objective. Next, the razorwing shoots the gants off that 3 point objective in the middle. The lone blasterborn is exactly 15" from the other 3 point objective, so he moves 6 and runs...5" after fleet! But the plan is now to kill all the gargoyles and take the 4 point objective with the scourges - that would give Nids first blood, linebreaker, warlord, 2 point objective and 3 point objective for 8, and DE warlord, 2 fast attack kills, 1 point objective and 4 point objective - a draw! I send everything after the gargoyles, but shooting is atrocious. I get to combat (forgetting my hammer of wrath attacks), and get 2 wounds on the last 2 gargoyles... save comes up as a double 6! So close...
We do in fact get turn 6 (so that cunning ploy was thwarted regardless), and all my remaining models get rounded up and eaten. Game ends at the end of turn 6, by which point I have a razorwing flying around and one wych locked in combat with a hive tyrant, armed only with a shardnet, an impaler, and a steadily-growing puddle around his feet.
Final Score:
Tyranids - 14 VPs (4 objective and both 3s, First Blood, Warlord, Linebreaker, 1 Fast Attack kill)
Dark Eldar - 5 VPs (the wych just has a 2 point objective, Warlord, 2 Fast Attack kills)
Crushing victory to the Tyranids!
Bleh. I need to grow new warriors, all my old ones got eaten. I maintain that my archon will carve his way out of the trygon's stomach sometime in the not too distant future, however. Was a really good game overall, and I'll list where I think it went wrong:
1) Reserves. Not convinced reserving that much was the right call, as it leaves me at the mercy of
2) Dice. Was rolling ridiculously well with my venoms on turn 1 and the early part of turn 2, but they just abandoned me later on. I don't want to blame my loss on the dice as I knew the risk I was taking, but I'm certain I'd have had more of a shot if another unit had turned up on turn 2 or any unit had turned up on turn 3.
3) Target priority. Not sure I made the right call every time, and I didn't have much margin for error. Not focussing on the right target at the right time was key. Didn't have enough on-table to give me leeway, and didn't think straight. I went after synapse when I should maybe have gone after squads, and vice-versa.
4) Mission. Being the scouring, the entire enemy army was scoring. If it was just about any other mission, I could have bumped the gargoyles down the priority list and focussed on the troops choices (tervy first, then gants). As it was, I couldn't let the winged blighters get away, and just had too many targets.
Overall, was a really enjoyable game. The nids were commanded much better than the Dark Eldar were, and it shows; if I'd made better choices at better times I might have pulled something out, but in the end experience paid off! As always, any C&C are welcome, and I'll likely be back next week if I can persuade the hive fleet to give me back some of my elves!
Subject: 1750 - Dark Eldar vs Tyranids 
Thu Oct 31 2013, 12:45
