Competitive 40k tactics and Battle Reports with the Tyranid Codex

Friday, March 15, 2013

Crucible 2013: vs Eldar/Dark Eldar

*Disclaimer on Batreps! I played 6 games this weekend. It's entirely possible I forgot some details, but I'll do what I can to make it as accurate as possible. I may confuse if I blew up a chimera on turn 2 or 3, etc. If you were my opponent in any of these reports, please speak up and correct any errors I made. Also, opponents will be identified by first name only. If anyone would like even that removed, just let me know and it'll disappear.*

Also, for players who turned their list in early, they are rewarded with ONE mulligan dice. It's a special, unique, tiny and sparkly orange dice that can reroll ONE roll in the tournament. It must be specifically a roll of yours, not a "general" roll like end of game, night fight, or initiative. My Mulligan has been used.

The fifth mission:

Primary: 7- The Relic
Secondary: 5- Table Quarters
Tertiary: 2- Kill Points
Bonus: 2 each-rulebook secondary objectives

Maximum points of 20 per round, standings are done on a pure BP score, WLD has no effect.

My list:

Flyrant: 2x Devourers, Old Adversary
Flyrant: 2x Devourers, Hive Commander (Warlord)
5 Ymgarls
5 Ymgarls
Doom in a SPod
10 gants
10 gants
20 gants
Tervigon (Toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers)
Tervigon (Toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers)
Tervigon (Toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers)
2 Biovores




My Opponent: Devin

Eldrad
10 Wraith Guard (1 Warlock)
3 Guardian Jetbikes
5 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent
6 Fire Dragons
A special FW tank- Warp Hunter? It had a Large blast, Ap. 2, wounds on a 2+, Instant Death as 6. Could also be fired as a 6" torrent weapon, same profile.
3 War Walkers, Scatter Lasers
Aegis Line, Quadgun

Baron Sathonyx (?)-the Hellion dude with Hit and run and stealth
5 Warriors in Venom, Splinter Cannon
10 Warriors in Raider, Blaster



Psychic Powers:

Flyrant 1: Enfeeble, Life Leech
Flyrant 2: Life Leech, Smite
Tervigon 1: Iron Arm, Life Leech, Warp Speed
Tervigon 2: Endurance, Life Leech, Warp Speed
Tervigon 3: Iron Arm, Enfeeble, Life Leech
The Doom: Cataclysm

Warlord Traits: Useless

Not Night Fight turn 1
Deployment: Vanguard Strike

Initiative: Eldar/DEldar

Deployment Eldar: His Aegi is strung out between two terrain pieces, with the Exarch on the gun. Warwalkers to their right, behind the uardian Bike unit. 4 vehicles are scattered behind, and his super Death Star is as far forward as possible.

Deployment Nids: Two Trvigons are both 12"exactly from the relic, I'm not letting him run away with it! Flyrants are scattered to either side, gants are also hiding behind, my third Tervigon is hanging back a bit with the Biovores. Standard reserves of Doom/Stealers

Pre game planning: Theres no way that I can get a full victory here. Actually, I'm just going to have to try to take the primary objective, and that's it. Any other points I get are a bonus. Turn 1 he can jump the bikes on the relic and if he does I'll punce on them. If not, I'll just take it and wrap it.

Turn 1 Eldar: As I predicted, the Relic is siezed turn 1. By a unit of gants! That magical 6 comes up, and I decide to scrap all my plans. I hurl my army at his in a balls to the walls attempt to take him down. I gun down the full unit of War walkers, and kill the Guardian Jetbikes, netting me two KPs, First Blood, and 13 models on the Relic. I also run a second spawned unit to wrap the original.

 
 
Turn 1 Eldar (for real): His army took a hit, but sadly he's not down yet. He fires the Raider and Venom at the non-Warlord Tyrant, and wounds him a few times. The Fire Dragons then get three hits, and I fail two cover saves. One down. The Wraithguard target the other Flyrant, with Guide, and shoot him down all on their own.
 
Turn 2 Nids: Crap! This game isn't even close to over. I get the Doom and half my Ymgarls. The Doom kills 5 Fire Dragons, and the Ymgarls asault the Wraithguard. First though, I spawn another unit of gants directly in front of the Wraithguard, so he can't hit and run forward. Shooting kills one, but the Ymgarls fail to get a single rend! Remarkably, he fails to wound as well. He H&Rs 17 "!!!! Fortunately I had blocked him, so he only goes sideways. Below you can see us in the middle of the assault phase. The Quad gun intercepts and kills the SPod


Here is his monsterous Hit and Run...
 
 
Turn 2 Eldar: His Wraithguard advance, and shoot at a Tervigon. He only has a few in range, but rolls three 6s to wound! I can't make that many Cover saves... Tervigon down! The rest of his army focus fires and downs the unit with the Relic.
 
Turn 3 Nids: I spawn a LOT of gants around the Wraithguard. Shooting nets 0 kills, darn Fortune. I then assault with only he TErvigon, who actually passes Iron Arm up to Toughness 9! I kill the Warlock in the challenge, he Hit and runs 11" backwards. I also get my second unit of Ymgarls in. I had gambled in their placement, and put them in a far off area piece with nothing nearby. My opponent was shocked, as he had flown his FW-tank over behind it! Muahaha... I hit the tank at +1attacks. 20 attacks, on a 3+, leads to 5 hits... leads to 0 glances... Oh no...  Below is his Death Star H&Ring back. To make things even worse, I put the Strength 10 Doom (he kills the last Fire Dragon) 1" away from the Raider, and then can't even see him behind it's Sail and forget to assault! 

 
 
Turn 3 Eldar His Wraithstar assaults and kills the nearest unit of gants. One dies in overwatch! The Venom blasts the Ymgarls down to 1 model :'( The Warp Hunter (FW tank) flies around and uses its template to shred a TON of gants. I had planned on that being dead, and clustered my troops a lot last turn... Ouch. The unit on the Relic dies also.
 
Turn 4 Nids: I go for a massive assault on the Deathstar. 32 gants head in with Poison, I should kill a few right? I leave one unit back to deny him a close H&R. It turns out he has defensive grenades... whoops. He takes 0 wounds, and steps back a few inches. The Doom assaults and murders the Raider, one turn late. 
 
Turn 4 Eldar: His Warriors step forward and blast down a unit of gants. I casually remind him to take a Doom Check, he loses 6 guys and falls back! I get to place the gants back, only for the damned Warp Hunter to lay down the Template of Doom and kill like 12 guys... (every single gant unit rolled a 1 to consolidate after he left combat) His Dire Avengers come in and hop in the Serpent.
 
Turn 5 Nids: I grab the relic again, and round up the gants to try to hold on for one turn. The Doom finishes off the Warriors. Biovores are ineffective, as all game.
 
Turn 5 Eldar: His Venom gets super lucky and kills an entire Tervigon. The Wraithguard hits the other squad and rolls a 6 to wound, I fail that cover save and lose the model. The two explosions decimate the gants around them, I only have a handful left, which is lessened by the Warp Hunters template. Not good!
 
I really need the game to end here... it doesn't. :/
 
Turn 6 Nids: Biovores kill a warrior out of the Venom squad, the last Ymgarl assaults and gets hit by a blaster on overwatch. Splat! Other gants crowd the objective. The Doom throws Catalyst on the Dire Avengers, who had disembarked. A direct hit only causes three wounds, he passes two cover saves and doesn't need moral. Bummer.
 
Turn 6 Eldar: I have no synapse, so he just lines up some gants for the firing squad. I have a few scattered left. He also flies the Warp Hunter full distance to contest the quarter the Doom was in.
 
The game ends here.
 
Primary: Draw
Secondary: Eldar (Full health vehicles could contest the quarter. I would have gotten this, and won, if not for that damned Warp Hunter! )
Tertiary: Eldar
First Blood: Nids
Linebreaker: Both of us
Warlord: Eldar
 
DEFEAT 11-4
 
 
Post game: In hindsight, I played this game completely wrong. I tried to block the Deathstar while I got the relic, and fed my entire army into that Meat grinder. I would have been a lot better off by just thowing one unit if gants in front of it, and then just avoiding it to kill everything else. Even if I lost primary I could have gotten secondary/tertiary, and combined with Linebreaker/First Blood could have had a narrow victory. This minor loss drops me from a solid 2nd place to a tie for 4th place, but I'm now far enough behind that I can't realistically win the GT. I think, other than my turn 1, the dice were a bit down on me. Both Ymgarl units were horribly ineffective, with simply godawful rolls. Then, a few bad saves, and hot rolls by the Wraithguard (especially on rolling 6s to wound) doomed me in this game. Plus, Eldrad is still my least favorite character in the game... I made enough mistakes though to say that my opponent deserved the win.

3 comments:

  1. Bad luck on those rends.
    I've had similar situations with Harlies, 40 attacks = 0 rends and the Marine player making all his saves...
    Hence my hate of rending now. But then my luck is terrible lol!

    I take it that the Eldar player was giving himself a 4+ cover save with the Baron + a conceal warlock?
    The Baron is quite nasty with his grenade pack, H&R and Invuln...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, they did have a 4++ cover, which doesn't really matter as I had no Ap 3 shooting.

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  3. I played against the wraithstar twice and lost both games. It's one of the harderst matchups for nids. The main idea with wraithstar is to avoid assaults with it and outmaneuver it first of all. Easy to say - not easy to play:)

    ReplyDelete