Since there isn't a dedicated BatRep forum, I thought I'd throw this up here.
Met Robbie the other day (not sure what his board-name is), played a game, and decided we'd play again today, so here's the battle.
When we'd talked before, he had mentioned that he had a CSM army and tyranids, so of course with my selective hearing I ignored the 'and tyranids' and showed up with the following anti-mech build:
HQKharn
Daemon Prince Sorceror w/MoS/Lash
TroopsBerzerkers x7
-Skull Champ w/PF
-Rhino
Berzerkers x6
-Skull Champ w/PW
-Meltabomb
-Rhino
Chaos Space Marines x10
-Champ w/PF
-2x Melta
-IoCG
Plague Marines x6
-2x plasmaguns
Fast AttackRaptors x5
-2x melta
-IOCG
Raptors x5
-2x melta
-IOCG
Heavy SupportOblits x3
Oblits x3
Defiler
His army consisted more or less of the following:
HQTyrant w/Leech Essence and Paroxysm
Tervigon w/Catalyst
ElitesHive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Lictor x2
TroopsWarriors x5
Genestealer Brood x12
Termagants x10
Hormagaunts x14
Heavy SupportCarnifex
-Mycetic Spore
-Bio-plasma
Carnifex
-Mycetic Spore
-Bio-plasma
Trygon
I could be missing some upgrades, but that looks right.
Set upGame type: Capture and Control
Deployment type: Dawn of War
I get first turn/deployment, putting my dismounted plague squad and Daemon Prince in the ruins in the center of the table and the tactical squad in the rhino behind the hill my objective is sitting on. My raptors are placed in reserve in preparation for turn 1.
He places his Tyrant on the opposite side as my tactical squad (by his objective) behind a line of hormagaunts. His Termagaunts are deployed opposite my plague marines. Fortunately, he fails to seize the initiative.
Turn 1CSM: I make the first of many tactical errors, having my oblits walk onto the table, quite purposefully, from my far corner, coming adjacent to the rhino with the tactical squad. Keep in mind, I completely forgot that many of his reserves outflank. I think you know where this will be going soon... Anyways, the tactical rhino moves up, hoping to get close enough to my opponent to maybe get a searchlight off. Fail!
The rhinos with Kharn and the other berzerkers move up behind the ruins that the plague marines are hiding in. The defiler creeps up to board-left of the rhino/my objective/oblits.
Searchlight is ineffective, and none of the shots can see through nightfighting. Man, I hate Dawn of War deployment...
Nids:The Hive Tyrant with gaunt support step forward a little bit, hooray. Behind them, the Tervigon comes onto the table, poops out 5 more gaunts, conveniently rolling double 1s so that its unable to poop out more in the future. Moral victory for me, and it'll be one of few.
To the center, the termagants move forward a little more, and the warriors and hive guard gimp their way forwards through some trees.
Shooting for them is about like mine, nothing manages to see through night fighting, simply reinforcing that Dawn of War deployment type is incredibly, incredibly gay. His tervigon casts catalyst onto the termagants.
Turn 2My first squad of raptors come in. I'm slightly at a loss as to what the hell to do with them, since they normally just try to pop armoured vehicles that cause me lots of butt-pain. So... in a sacrficial/distracting move, I drop them in the middle of the gap between his tyrant/tervigon/warriors, in a suicide mission to try to at least knock a wound or two of his monstrous creates back there. Ninja jump, no scatter!
My zerker rhinos move up 12" towards their objective, my DP shuffles over in the ruins, and my tactical rhino moves to the other side of my objective to hide a little bit.
The obliterators just... move up a tiny bit.
Here's where I make a couple more stupid decisions...
Oblits try to shoot plasma cannons at the cluster of hive tyrant/guard/hormagaunts, two of the three get hot, one just misses completely, and one of those gets hot! results got me a wound. Awesome!
Oblits squad #2 shoots lascannons at the hive tyrant. Two of the three miss, the third wounds but the tyrant makes his cover save and I die a little bit on the inside. There's 450 points well spent!
For lack of any other targets, I lash the termagants into a nice little grouping and drop a defiler template on them, which scatters enough that only 4 die. Plague marines shoot and kill 2 more. My suicide raptors knock a single wound from the trygon, then piss themselves a little bit.
No assaults are made.
Nids:Here's where things begin to get nasty. His Trygon, carnifex #1, and genestealer brood come into the table. Yeeep I forgot about outflank, and he rolls well enough that they all jump in riiight next to my obliterators. Boc is sad in the pants. The carnifex pops out of its spore right in front of my second oblits squad.
The raptors did what they were supposed to do... I guess, and distracted a good chunk of his army. The tyrant casts paroxysm on the raptors successfully, yay WS/BS/I of 1! Awesome...
The carnifex shot oblits squad #2 with his bio-plasma, hitting all 3 with the template, and causing 3 wounds, no invuln saves are made, so 1.5 models die.
His hive guard, warriors, and surviving tervagants shoot at my plague marines to no avail.
Conveniently, the carnifex can't charge yet so just stands there angrily.
Genestealers assault the other obliterator squad, and somehow, by the grace of god, only a total of 3 unsaved wounds go through, so I'm left with a single oblit who kills off two genestealers in the process. Woo...
No further assaults.
Turn 3CSM:My now-2-man obliterator squads try to back away to by themselves some space, and the tactical rhino on the objective backs off. My second squad of raptors, somewhat at a loss as to what to do, runs on the table.
I sucked at taking pictures during my turn this game, so I apologize!
Daemon prince jumps out of cover towards the cluster of rhinos, and (foolishly again) my 2x khorne rhinos just sit there to hopefully reclaim my own objective if necessary but still within room to do a mad dash to the other side if needed.
My defiler inches forward a little bit to get LOS of the trygon.
For shooting, the obliterator squad not locked in combat pump TL plasmagun shots into the carnifex and knock off 3 wounds. I get a wee bit excited, and pump out three rapid fire TL bolters from all of my rhinos at the 'fex, and wound it, which it then saves much to my dismay. The raptors all shoot at the fex and miss. My wife calls me on my cell phone, and I forget to shoot the 'fex with my defiler's autocannons. Women...
Lash of submission hits the trygon, to move it a wopping 2 inches! I move it back towards his long table edge and away from my models.
The meltas inside my rhino pop the mycetic spore, and my plague marines finish off the last of the termagants.
I make another poor choice and don't assault the carnifex with my obliterators, while the other squad gets wiped out by the genestealers.
Nids:His second carnifex, the ymgarl genestealers, and the lictors come in off reserves. The 'fex right behind my defiler (no scatter :headbutt: ) and the lictors and genestealers from my objective's terrain.
The first 'fex and genestealers circle 'round my oblits, while the ymgarls, trygon, and hormagaunts close in on my daemon prince. The tervigon, hive tyrant, hive guard, and warriors just inch along, doing quite poorly in their mostrous-terrain moves.
The mycetic spore shoots its thing at the rear armour of my defiler and make it explode. Again, I am sad. The carnifex within it shoots the Kharn rhino with his bio-plasma and wrecks it. The berserkers within cower between the wreckage and the functional rhino.
His Hive Tyrant is just in range of my Daemon Prince and successfully casts paroxysm, reducing all of his worthwhile stats to 1. Hive guard shoot the prince and knock off a wound. The warriors take potshots at my plague marines and kill off two bolter bearers. The bored looking tervigon casts catalyst on the hormagaunts.
The genestealers assault my raptors through cover, and although they all hit at initiative 1, I only kill one, they get two, I fail morale twice and proceed to run off the table. The fex attacks my oblits and another dies, and none of their attacks hit the carnifex. One fearless wound is taken, and the final obliterator manages to stay locked in CC for another turn. After my DP amazingly made all of the rending invuln saves, but failed the 3 out of 13 armour saves. I was actually impressed enough by the dice results I wasn't overly butthurt when he died without killing a model. My first time with a Slaaneshi-DP was an experiment... and I at least learned what NOT to do haha.
Last Stand of Phil the Daemon Prince
Turn 4CSM:At this point, I finally remember that I'm a chaos player, and that I should probably be doing more than sit there and get my arse pounded. My tacticals jump out to face the carnifex on my left flank, Kharn peels off from his squad and heads for the ymgarls, while the rest of his squad runs for the two lictors (whose "give everyone rerolls on hits/wounds" sucks balls, if you were wondering"), and the other squad of berserkers runs at the hormagaunts. The non-kharn rhino moves into the ruins and my plague squad hops in.
The PW-bearing squad shoot some pistols at the gaunts, killing off some random, unimportant number. Kharn holds his fire to make sure he can range the assault, and the other berserkers don't wound the two lictors with their pistols. The plague marines shoot at the warriors and knock off two wounds.
The other rhino shoots at the carnifex and wiffs. My tactical squad unloads on the carnifex (rather than the mycetic spore so I could assault both) and take off 2/4 wounds.
Assault time! The berserkers hit the gaunts, killing them all and suffering two casualties (conveniently one of which was my champion, which always seems to happen).
I don't know how, but I think these guys were fearless which is what killed off the last two. I consolidate, like the wimp I am, into cover. Kharn kills 5/6 ymgarrls, and is killed in return. Somehow, the other squad kills the two lictors and only lose one model. Woo!
My obliterator finally dies.
Apparently mycetic spores are a pain in the ass in CC, it kills off two of my CSM, and the 'fex kills off another two. My champion knocks the 3rd wound from the 'fex, but they all remain locked in CC.
Nids:The last ymgarl sneaks up behind my zerkers who consolidated onto my objective, as does the trygon. The other genestealers move towards my tactical squad which is locked in with the other 'fex. The free carnifex manages to roll triple 1s for difficult terrain and can't quite reach the zerkers.
The tervigon, tyrant, guard, and warriors keep walking forward bored.
The 'fex shoots his bio-plasma at my zerkers and kills two of the 5 on my objective. One of the advancing line of monsters shoots my zerkers in cover, and 2/4 more die. The genestealers run closer to my tactical squad.
The trygon and ymgarl genestealer assault my three berserkers on the hills.
His last genestealers join the assault against my tactical squad and proceed to have the worst dicerolling I have ever seen. They only wind up killing one model, and I was quite happy. The mycetic spore and 'fex killed another, but my PF finally took the last wound off the carnifex and it dropped. I pass morale and stay locked in combat.
Turn 5CSM/NidAt this point, I knew that no matter what, I was completely and utterly screwed. I tried moving my rhino with my plagues in it, but it was immobilized. They jumped out and walked over to stand on the wreckage of the other rhino as their final stand location.
The last two berserkers ran over to try and help out their embattled tactical squad.
On the bright side, the plague marines shoot at the last carnifex and manage to finally kill it. Hooray.
My berserkers assault the genestealers, kill two while they manage to kill off the rest of the three tactical marines. Conveniently the mycetic spore is no longer in base-to-base, so at least that spares me some annoyance. One berserkers dies to a fearless wound.
Nid turn 5, they close in on my plague marines and deny Bob the Berserker from his heroic last stand, killing him off and consolidating towards my plague marines.
Dice result for turn 6 is a 2, game ends.
Flegmus's plague marines are quite happy that it did end...
I end the game with 1 working rhino, 1 immobilized rhino, and 3 plague marines, no objectives.
He ends with 1 ymgarl genestealer, hive tyrant, trygon, tervigon, genestealers, 5 warriors, and 4 hive guard. Yeah, I got my ass curb stomped.
Lessons Learned1.
Don't be tentative: This is my first time playing tyranids with their new codex, and I was very unsure of what to expect. Since 99.9% of the players in my area are SM or equivalent, I build an army that can deal with armour. I knew that my list was ill suited to face monstrous creatures, but rather than adapt to the necessary change in my tactics, I just hit my head against a brick wall and played the same way I would have otherwise.
2.
Don't deploy like an idiot: When you are unfamiliar with an opponent's codex, listen to them as they explain to you what the hell the stuff in their codex does. He clearly told me that his genestealers and trygon outflanked, but I still put my best anti-MC units (the oblits) riiiight next to a board edge. This made them easy pickings, the first turn his 'stealers and whatnot joined the fray. I couldn't recover from losing my heavy hitters (or getting them locked up) and, not going to lie, it was a huge psychological impact once my big-bad-oblits got taken out.
3.
Don't get distracted: Not that it was a game-changer, but forgetting to shoot my defiler during its last turn of life was stupid as hell. There was a pretty solid chance that it would have killed the 'fex, which would have let my oblits run away.
4.
Mutually supporting units: This goes along with 'don't deploy like an idiot,' but applies more to throughout the game. I left my DP out to dry, I left my oblits out to dry, etc. Make sure units are within range to help that can actually help. Don't deploy so linearly that the enemy can effectively focus all their strength against a fraction of yours. Due to how he played his army vs how I played mine, he was pretty much playing 1,000 points against 500 or so at a time of mine, and managed to chew straight through them.
All in all, an enjoyable game, and at least a taste of what Tyranids can do (which was rather unpleasant, I must add). Hopefully I can get a few more games against them under my belt, at the very least to break up the SM-SM-SM-SM-SM monotony, but also to learn how to play against them.
Thanks for reading!