Well school has taken its toll on my ability to paint and model and game but things have calmed down a bit. Mostly because Spring break is upon me and I've got 2 weeks of nothing. No marking or planning of lessons so I'm using the time to playtest my 'Ard Boyz list since that tournament is coming up in about 6 weeks or so.
The list that I will be testing is as follows. A little different from what I originally planned, but I think it can combat the Alpha Strike lists that I see on the internet with its myriad of Reserve options (outflank, deep strike, ride in raiders or not, etc.)
-HQ-
Belial – Claws
Sammael – Speeder mode
-Elite-
5 Company Veterans – Missile Launcher, Flamer, Razorback w/ TL-Heavy Bolters
5 Company Veterans – Missile Launcher, Flamer, Razorback w/ TL-Heavy Bolters
-Troops-
Deathwing Squad 1 – Assault Cannon, Chainfist, Apothecary
Deathwing Squad 2 – Assault Cannon, Chainfist, Thunder Hammer & SS
Deathwing Squad 3 – Assault cannon, Chainfist, Thunder Hammer & SS, Pair of Lightning Claws
Ravenwing Squadron 1 – 2 Meltaguns, Attack bike w/ Multi-Melta
Ravenwing Squadron 2 – 2 Plasmaguns, Apothecary, Attack bike w/ Multi-Melta
-Fast Attack-
Land Speeder Typhoon – Multi-Melta
Land Speeder Typhoon – Multi-Melta
-Heavy Support-
Land Raider
Land Raider Crusader
Game 1 vs. Nidzilla
Enemy List
-HQ-
Hive Tyrant – Lash Whip, Bone Sword, Heavy Venom Cannon, Hive Commander, Leech Essence, Psychic Scream
Hive Tyrant – Lash Whip, Bone Sword, Scything Talons, Old Adversary, Wings, Paroxysm, Leech Essence
-Troops-
5 Warriors - Deathspitters, Lash-Whip & Boneswords
5 Warriors - Deathspitters, Lash-Whip & Boneswords
10 Genestealers - Broodlord, Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
10 Genestealers - Broodlord, Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
-Heavy Support-
2 Carnifexes – Heavy Venom Cannon, Twin-linked Devourers w/ Brianleeches
2 Carnifexes – Crushing Claws, Scything Talons, Frag Spines
Tyrannofex – Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines
Game was Pitched Battle Capture and Control with an interesting secondary mission, Midnight Slaughter. Game started out in Night Fight mode and you rolled at the end of each game turn. On a 6+ Night Fight ended. The roll gets a +1 bonus for each turn after the first. Each player had to keep track of the number of units killed in an assault during the Night Fight portion of the game, whoever had the most units killed would end up winning the secondary mission.
He got first turn and set up his objective in the centre of his deployment zone behind some trees. I put mine as far away as I could on my right out in the open. I took a gamble as he had three possible outflanking units but if they outflanked on the wrong side I could ignore pretty easily.
The table was pretty even, on each player’s right were two ruins, a batch of trees in the centre and two more batches on each player’s left. He deployed one unit of warriors on his objective, beside them were the HVC Carnifexes and the HVC Tyrant. In one of his ruins he deployed his Tyrranofex. He placed his Crushing Claw Fexes directly opposite my objective along with his winged Hive Tyrant. His genestealers and other warrior squad were outflanking.
I opted to keep everything in reserve. Deathwing Squad 2 and 3 rode in the land raiders (Belial with the more choppy Squad 3), the Ravenwing outflanked and Deathwing squad 1 were teleporting in.
The first three turns were uneventful as he just moved all his choppy guys forward towards my objective while keeping the HVC Monsters far enough back to provide fire support without being rushed by land raiders with terminators. One of the genestealer broods outflanked by my objective, but the other genestealer brood and warrior squad outflanked on the wrong side. My turn 2 saw only one land speeder typhoon enter play, but on my third turn I got Deathwing Squad 2 and their regular raider, one of the veteran squads and their razorback, the plasma bikers and Deathwing Squad 1. Thankfully the plasma bikers and their MM outflanked on the correct side and zoomed to within rapid fire range of either the winged tyrant or the crushing claw fexes. My opponent misjudged the distance his crushing claw fexes were from the edge and my terminators jumped out of their raider and pounded the carnis into oblivion losing only 2 terminators (he had bad dice wounding only 3 times with his 13 attacks). The winged tyrant got lit up by the plasma bikers (The sgt. got lucky with his bolter and finished the tyrant off) and the genestealer brood that was near my objective got flamed down to 2 genestealers and a broodlord.
After that turn, it pretty much went my way as he didn’t have enough firepower or close combat specialists nearby to take down my terminators before they got to his objective and cleared everyone off. The HVC carnifexes met up with Belial’s choppy squad and got beat up. The HVC Tyrant and the Tyrranofex were gunned down by the Ravenwing (Sammy scored 3 rending wounds on the Tyrranofex to finish it off!). Night Fight finished at the end of Turn 3 and since I was the only one to kill a unit in close combat, I won that mission. Primary (2 objectives to 0) and Secondary mission complete so Major Victory for me. All that my opponent had were four warriors on the wrong side of the table (the second genestealer brood was flamed and gunned down by the other veteran squad though not before the genestealers caught Sammy and caused him to explode)
Conclusion:
My opponent just started playing with the new tyranids (has used them before with the previous codex) so some of the new rules and units needed some getting used to I think. We both had some good luck and bad luck but I think I had the better luck at the right times. He also made some tactical errors like not keeping his combat fexes away from the edges and maybe should have deployed everything on the field all at once. Two infiltrating genestealer broods near my objective would have been quite scary. Though my two flamer veteran squads seemed to deal with them ok.
Having Carnifexes in squads seems to make them worse I think. With the previous Tyranid codex, assaulting two separate carnifexes with one terminator squad usually meant one or both carnifexes would have survived as I generally caused enough wounds to kill one carnifex by causing 5-6 wounds on it but only causing maybe 2-3 wounds on the second carnifex. Now that they are part of the same squad (and armed the same) the combined number of wounds caused is enough to kill both. Also with no way to improve their WS beyond 3 and I beyond 1, they are way easier to hit with more fists than before.
The psychic powers surprisingly didn’t do anything but that could just be because the tyrants died very quickly. I am currently worried whether I need some psychic defence or not considering the rise in power of some of the psyker powers.
Next test game looks to be against a Space Marine list of some variety (probably some kind of Vulkan-Melta-Spam).
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