Competitive 40k tactics and Battle Reports with the Tyranid Codex

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

8/4 RTT game two 2k vs. Chaos


For my second game I ended up against the only other winner in round one, a very friendly guy with an (almost) exclusively Khorne army. For the record, I pronounce it Corn. Yep. Bloodthirsty breakfast cereal for the win!

Ok, here's his list:

Ahriman (warlord)
Chaos Lord with Mark of Khorne on a jugger and a Bloodfeeder. (Daemon Weapon, gives +2d6 attacks. Yikes!)
10 Zerkers
10 CSM with Mark of Khorne and Fist
7 CSM with Mark of Khorne and Power Sword
full Lascannon Pred.
Defiler
6 Summoned lesser Daemons
5 Terminators with a bunch of combi weapons, a Reaper, and Axes/Fists.
5 Havocs, straight metal models with one each of: Lascannon, Missile, Autocannon, Heavy Bolter
3 Bikers

My psychic powers:
Swarmy: (Invisibility, Haemorrhage, Iron Arm, Warp Speed)
Flyrant: (Endurance, Enfeeble)
Tervigon 1: (Iron Arm, Warp Speed, Shockwave)
Tervigon 2: (Enfeeble, Life Leech, Iron Arm)

Mission: 6 preplaced Objectives, one in the center of each 2x2 foot square for the RoB board. These are random points values(1 2 2 3 3 4) , which will not be revealed until the end of the game! Deployment is Hammer and Anvil. Fast attack are scoring, and one VP each if killed.

NOTE: I'll be telling this from the perspective of my opponents short table edge, as it's Hammer and Anvil, and my short edge is touching a wall.

My pre game thoughts: I think I can out-assault his army, and if I did the math right, I need 4 of the 6 objectives for a guarenteed majority of the points. He'll have to hold some of his units back to score, and if he does so he'll be too heavily outnumbered to win I think.

Deployment Chaos: His Berzerkers are to the right of his deployment zone, with the Jugger lord behind them and a 7 man squad on the right objective. He has the Defiler to the right and the pred to the left of a central ruin (remember thuis ruin), with  the Havocs and bikes on the far left, the havocs are in a building and the bikes are next to it. His Terminators and Daemons are in reserve.

Deployment Tyranids: I drop the two ten man gant squads in the back, by two objectives, and the rest of my army is in the massive chaos temple terrain piece from GW, right at the front of my Deployment zone. Both hormagaunt squads are on a flank each, both the Hive Guard are on the left side, and the Flyrant is all on his own ready to creep up the far right side and hit the zerkers at some point. Ymgarls are in a central ruin from which I can hit one of his objectives or the Predator.

Turn 1 Chaos: He uses Gate of Infinity on Ahriman to move a squad up to the right side central objective, but scatters a bit and I believe will be in charge range. A general advance is enacted by everything not either shooting, or the 7 guys on the back objective. We roll for the objective on a special table that the TO made for this mission, and it's a freaking Psychuein hive! Crap! The Flyrant, a Tervigon and Ahriman all suffer a wound. At this point we're all laughing (including that pesky TO) about the visual of a Tyrant getting nailed by a flying space penguin. Shooting wounds the Swarmlord once, and maybe a Hive Guard once.

Turn 1 Nids: Iron Arm goes off all over, and the Flyrant goes 24", enfeebling Ahrimans squad and then dakka-ing 4 Berzerkers to death. A general advance and Hive Guard shooting glances the Defiler once. The right side Hormagaunts run down at the Marines and assault. Unfortunately, overwatch kills two, and the remainiong 8 in range whiff horribly! 24 attacks only yields 5 hits, there were literally 18 2s and 3s. Still, I killed two Marines, although the return attacks killed a fair amount of gaunts.

Turn 2 Spikey Marines: His Daemons come in off of Ahriman's personal Icon (or the squads icon, not sure). They are in front of the Swarmlord, a Tervigon, and 3 Hive Guard, not to mention the Hormagaunts. He advances everything again, his berzerkers run at the Flyrant and wound him, but can't bring him down. The Defiler hits the Swarmy for no damage (Go Iron Arm!) and his bikers activate the mysterious objective to the center left of the table, it's another psychuein hive! Thankfully most of the MCs are above T7, and none are hurt. The Hive tyrant passes his grounding check for being hit by a Penguin. In assault the Daemons hit the Hive Guard and we each lose a wound. The Hormagaunts and Ahrimans squad whittle eachother down a little more, but Im low on gaunts. His bikers charge the Hormagaunts, and I kill one in exchange for losing two.

Turn 2 Nids: The Ymgarls come in, and nail the squad on the objective. I kill 3 of the 7, and lose none in return (+1 Toughness) The Swarmlord charges the lesser Daemons, and the Tervigon charges Ahrimans squad. Hive Guard shooting kills the Defiler (I thought he had 4 hull points, but both my opponent and another guy said they had 3.) This gives me First Blood. The Hormagaunt combat goes on, but he's down to only a few models and Ahriman, while he nearly kills all the gaunts. The Tervigon is T8 and seemingly invulnerable. The Swarmlord whipes the Daemons, and the bikers lose another man but kill two gaunts. Lastly, The flyrant swoops around and blasts the Chaos Lord, he's down to one wound.

Turn 3 Chaos: No Terminators yet again, luckily. His Berzerkers down and charge the Flyrant, as does the Lord. The lord and tyrant are simultaneous at Initiative 5, and whipe eachother out. Havoc and Predator shooting kill a Hive Guard and might wound a Tervigon. His last biker somehow holds on. In assault, his marines lose a few more, but it's taking the TErvigon a while to kill them all...

Turn 3 Nids: I advance everything, shoot the predator to no effect, and the Ymgarls and Hormagaunts both finish off their respective enemies. A fairly short turn for me. His marines are cut down to Ahriman and the Powerfist champ.

Turn 4 Chaos: He really has nothing to do. His berzerkers are far from any objectives after chasing the Tyrant, but at least his Terminators come in. They land off Ahriman and between Combi Meltas and the Lascannon Pred, kill the Swarmlord. (I also fail a few Reaper Autocannon saves) In assault the tervigon kills Ahriman and the Champion, finally!

Turn 4 Tyranids: The Tervigon grabs an obective, as do the Hormagaunts. I spawn a crap ton of gaunts, and shoot the Terminators down to two models after the Hive Guard chip in. An assault by a Tervigon and about 15 gaunts finishes them off.

At this point we call the game. He has one scoring unit, and I have 4 objectives, while contesting another. If his berzerkers (now at 5 models) go after either of the closest objective, they'll be murdered. His only surviving models are 5 zerkers, 5 havocs and a Predator. I could probably kill two of these if we went to turn 5, and I'd get a table by turn 6 if I moved the hormagaunts off the objective to chase the Havocs.

VICTORY TO THE SWARM! We totalled up the points, and I had one each of the 1,2,3,and 4 point objectives, and I contested the other 3.

I killed his Warlord (which was worth two bonus points), got first blood, and linebreaker, plus I killed a fast attack unit. This, combined with the 10 points for winning Primary, put me at 28 points so far on the day.

Post game: This was a good matchup for me. Hordes of CC troops almost always beat other CC troops (except Purifiers), and he had nothing to stop my MCs as a whole, it took a lot of focus fire to kill the Swarmlord, and putting the Tervigons in the center with him overwhelmed his front lines. Over all, a solid victory for the Nids!

Next up is a GK Henchmen spam list with IG allies.

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