Victory Pointless

This was a rematch against the Dark Angels I played before.  I finally have 2k worth of Tyranids painted and even more finally feel confident enough in my grasp of the rules that I could actually get through a 2000 point game before kicking-out time.

Spoiler: we did not get through a 2000 point game before kicking-out time.  Unfortunately the Northern Line had other plans for the evening and collapsed, meaning we were both late and didn’t actually start playing until over an hour after we were supposed to and, as a consequence we only got to turn 3.

The Forces

Tyranids: Hive Tyrant, Neurotyrant + 3 Zoanthropes, Broodlord + 5 Genestealers, 10 Hormagaunts [Reserves], 10 Neurogaunts, 5 Barbgaunts, Lictor, Biovore, Psychophage, Screamer Killer, Exocrine, Tyrannofex, Norn Emissary, Norn Assimilator [Reserves].

Dark Angels: Azrael + 5 Hellblasters, Ezekial + 5 Assault Intercessors, Phobos Lieutenant + 5 Incursors, 5 more Hellblasters, 5 more Assault Intercessors, 3 Aggressors, 5 Deathwing Terminators [Reserves], 5 Deathwing Knights [Reserves], 5 Infernus(es?), Redemptor, Land Raider, Ravenwing Land Speeder

The Mission

We were back to the Leviathan deck here (Pariah Nexus decks seem to have been out of stock everywhere for months) and we drew Priority Targets, Dawn of War and Vox Static.

The Battle

Turn 1

The Dark Angels got first turn and in shooting chipped a few wounds off my Tyrannofex and Psychophage.  The Norn moved up the right flank, destroying a Land Speeder and getting onto its Singular Purpose objective.  Genestealers and the Screamer Killer went up the left, shredding a squad of Incursors and taking the objective on that side.  The Barbgaunts killed a Hellblaster, but their shoot-on-death ability meant that it cost two Barbgaunts in exchange!  The Exocrine killed three Infernus marines.

Dark Angels: + 5 (Extend Battle Lines) = 5

Tyranids: + 5 (Extend Battle Lines) + 3 (Engage on all Fronts) = 8

Turn 2

The Deathwing Terminators and Knights teleported in on the left and right flanks respectively.  Shooting and a charge of Assault Intercessors wiped the Genestealers and Screamer Killer off the left objective.  On the right flank the Aggressors and Redemptor fired at the Norn Emissary but failed to do any damage and the Knights failed their charge.  The Norn lived!  Again!  In the centre the Hellblasters advanced but thanks to the Barbgaunts slowing them down couldn’t quite make it to the centre objective.

On my turn I looked for somewhere to bring on my Norn Assimilator and Hormagaunts from reserve but couldn’t find anywhere they’d be useful so left them in reserves ‘for now’.

In an incredible feat of dice rolling my Exocrine wiped out the entire squad of Terminators in a single round of shooting.  Not to be outdone my Tyrannofex then took out the Land Raider, doing an incredible 22 wounds.

In the centre-ground the Tyrant, Lictor and Neurogaunts broke from cover (in the Tyrant’s case smashing through a wall), took the centre objective and charged the Hellblasters, inflicting some casualties but failing to wipe either squad.

Dark Angels: 5 + 5 (Primary) + 3 (Engage On All Fronts) + 4 (Bring it Down) = 17

Tyranids: 8 + 10 (Primary) + 3 (Area Denial) = 21

Turn 3

This is unfortunately where we had to call it, halfway through the Dark Angels’ turn.  By that point they had managed to wipe out the Neurogaunts on the centre objective and done some damage to the nearby Hive Tyrant and Psychophage.  The Knights lost two members to overwatch from the Neurotyrant but made their charge into the Norn Emissary – unfortunately how that combat would’ve turned out we will never know as we ran out of time!

At that point in the turn the Dark Angels had done enough to score 5 on secondaries at the end of their turn, which would’ve put them into the lead, except at the end of their turn I would have scored Defend Stronghold, putting me back in the lead, and the rest of the game could genuinely have gone either way so we agreed to call it a draw.

Dark Angels: 17 + 5 (Primary) + 2? (No Prisoners) + 3? (Overwhelming Force) + 10 (Paint) = 37?

Tyranids: 21 + 5? (Primary) + 3? (Defend Stronghold) + 10 (Paint) = 39?

Transport for London: + 30 (Delaying Tactics) = 30

Result: Too Close To Call – Draw!

Post-Mortem

Obviously, it’s a real shame we didn’t get to finish as it was shaping up to be a really interesting end-game and it’s hard to see who would have come out on top, especially since the primary mission awards a lot of points to whoever has objective control at the end of the game.

My next move would have been to bring on the Norn Assimilator on the left flank and with the Terminators and Land Raider dead I’m confident it could’ve retaken that objective.  In the centre ground I was just about to lose my Hive Tyrant and Psychophage and didn’t really have anything else to throw in there, so my money would’ve been on the Dark Angels winning out there.  On the right side I’m not really sure how it would’ve gone.  As tough as it is I think the Norn would have (eventually) lost out against a full squad of Deathwing Knights, but them being reduced to just three beforehand may have been key and made it a more even matchup.  I think that probably would have been the decisive battle.  My Back Pocket Cheap Move was saving Shadow In The Warp for Turn 5, hopefully battleshocking a few Dark Angels units and losing them not only Turn 5 primary but the end-of-game primary too.  It’s a coin flip whether that would’ve actually worked, though.  In short, there was a lot of scope for it to have gone either way!

Some further thoughts:

• I was trying out the Crusher Stampede detachment for the first time.  It seems OK, but didn’t come into play much in this half-game.  Of the monsters who were injured enough to get the +1 to hit bonus, the Screamer Killer died too fast to use it, the Tyrant already hits on 2s, the Tyrannofex had +1 to hit from Heavy anyway and the Psychophage’s ranged attack was Torrent.  Of the stratagems, Savage Roar was a useful defensive melee buff and Untrammelled Ferocity was great fun to allow my Tyrant to smash through a wall and ambush the Hellblasters.  I probably should also have used Massive Impact as a poor man’s Tank Shock.  I didn’t see any opportunities to use the others.
• My list is very monster-heavy.  Half the units in my list are monsters, in fact. This is partly trying to make the most of Crusher Stampede but primarily because this is pretty much everything I have painted right now.  However, it’s admittedly a skew list that has the potential to be a bit of a stat check and un-fun to play against for armies without enough anti-tank.  Having an army of big stompy monsters was the first thing that drew me to Tyranids, but the second was that it looked like an army that would be fun to play against.  I’m now wondering how to square that circle – how many monsters is too many, exactly?  The next few things in my painting queue are all small squishy bugs so that I’ll at least have the option to take a more balanced and cannon-fodder-rich list in casual games. In a world where Imperial Knights and Custodes exist, perhaps I’m worrying too much about this, anyway.
• Throwing both my Genestealers and Screamer-Killer up the left flank was a waste of one or the other, since either one could probably have killed the Incursors on their own and they both got gunned down immediately afterwards (a bad trade for me).  It would’ve been better to send one in after the Incursors and hold the other back to charge in after the first had been gunned down and another enemy unit had moved onto the objective.  Tyranids generally don’t have the durability to take an objective and then just sit on it and are very reliant on charging rather than being charged.  I actually quite like this since it gives a mechanical incentive to send troops in waves, just like in the video games!
• Having spent a significant chunk of my 40k-playing career so far running away from Terminators it was incredibly cathartic to have one-shot a whole squad of them in this game.  Not even my beloved Doomsday Ark ever managed that.
• MVP has to go to the Exocrine for the Terminator slaughter, but also for killing enough Infernus marines that they failed battle shock and didn’t score primary on their home objective for a turn. Close second is the Tyrannofex for that Land Raider kill. I should probably now retire both of these units immediately because there is no way I will ever roll that well for them again.
• Not bringing my reserves in on Turn 2 was, in retrospect, a bit of a shame since we never made it to my reinforcements stage in Turn 3 and so my shiny new Norn Assimilator never got on the table.  I should also have Rapid Ingressed the Hormagaunts to the North-West corner so that on my theoretical Turn 3 they could’ve tied up the Eradicators (but since by that point it was obvious we wouldn’t get that far I’ll forgive myself the oversight). Reserves are a lot trickier to use now that we’re up to 2000 points and a lot more of the table real estate is screened out – I’m starting to see the value in Deep Strike a lot more.
• My Hive Tyrant felt a bit wasted in this game, possibly due to bad deployment. He wants to castle up with some other heavy-hitters so that his aura of free strats can support them, but given the wide deployment zone in this game, clumping up too much didn’t seem prudent and he ended up babysitting some of my weaker units in the middle. He also didn’t really hit hard enough when he did get into combat to carry the fight. I was running him with a Venom Cannon to give him some ranged threat but for Crusher Stampede smashing-through-walls-ambush-shennanigans a melee build would probably have been better. Good thing his arms are magnetised!