Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Trying out the bugs vs Scott

I challenged Scott with my Tyranids who I am trying to play with the sub par codex GW has put out in my opinion. We played 1750 seize ground with 4 objectives.

My list was:
Swarmlord with 2 tyrant guard
1 Tervigon with catalyst and onslaught.
1 Troop Tervigon with catalyst and onslaught.
10 termaguants.
1 Trygon Prime with Toxin Sacs.
1 Trygon with Toxin Sacs.
1 Mawloc.
2 Zoanthropes in a Mycetic Spore
1 Zoanthrope
1 Venomethrope

Scott Played:
Vulkan
1 Landraider
1 Landraider Crusader
3 speeders with Typhoon lauchers and Multi meltas (seperate)
5 TH/SS and 3 Lightning Claw terminators
10 Tac Squad with Melta/MMelta in Rhino
10 Tac Squad with flamer and something.

Turn 1 set up with Mawloc on the board who I had to proxy my red crusher fex as a mawloc and the rest of the units as seen above. We rolled up dawn of war which really screwed me as I had to basically bring all my big stuff from the edge of the board instead of getting close to him. (This really lost me the game along with my inability to roll more than a 2 in the running phase! Seriously!!! Ask Scott)


Scott Set up with almost nothing and moved on everything first turn. I shot and ran and spit out guants from my HQ Tervigon. Idiot rolled doubles after 11 and went dry. Second Tervigon made 10 and was still potent. THIS TERVIGON WAS MY MVP as he spit out over 89 gaunts in 7 turns! Yes he is my guy!!! His children even killed Vulken!! :)

Turn 2 was an epic fail for my Zoanthropes not coming in a 3+. I moved forward to try and get closer and of course rolled 1's and 2's even. Another failure. The Mawloc did come in and hit the speeder and Landraider. I made a mistake thinking I got the extra d6 penetration against vehicles. He did nothing but did stay in base with the landraider and the speeder. Nothing else went well for me this turn.


His turn 2 he moved around and shot alot at the Mawloc and only caused 3 wounds. The landraider that was in base didn't move but pivoted to shoot all weapons at my Trygon. He caused 1 would. his speeders moved around to get crack missle shots at the trygon causing 1 more wound. He also got the Tac Squad out to rapid fire into the mawloc. Vulkan assualted the mawloc to kill him at his higher iniative but only caused 1 wound. I elected to hit the landraider instead of vulkan and wrecked it!! YEah! Scott should have moved the landraider. Of course I was planning on using my hit and run ability to jump out of combat and burrow again but that failed on my turn! :(


My turn 3 was better as I got into combat with the Trygon, blew up 1 speeder with the Prime, and of course didn't get my reserves on a 2+(epic fail-this would have changed the game as well) The swarmlord of course only moved thru cover 2 inches!!! :(. I had to set up to prepare for a charge from the terminators since I couldn't pop them with the zoeys who didnt want to come in. The trygon killed a good amount of the tac squad and of course I failed my initiative test to jump out of combat and the mawloc died to vulkan.


His turn 3 shooting was good as he killed 1 tyrant guard, the venomthrope, and put 3 wounds on the prime. He pushed Vulkan in the fight to finish off the trygon. His teminators assaulted and made an incredible amount of invol saves. The prime only killed 1 and the swarmlord only killed 1! really!! The prime dies in 1 round and the Swarmlord takes 1 wound.


My turn 4 i finally get my reserves and and try to land my spore on the objective to contest but scatter 8 inches away. My zoanthropes land shoot at the landraider, but of course get the only result I don't want is a destroyed weapon. I proceed to continue to make gaunts to try and protect my right flank. I shoot te 5 man squad with warp blast and he goes to ground in the open and saves 2. How come that never works when I do that? These 2 would save my swarmlord on the last turn from charging into them and taking away 1 objective with thier melta gun. I do some more wounds to the Terminators and start widdling them down. he wins combat but I make my saves. He moves Vulkan and jumps in the rhino and starts moving towards me. He kills my lone zoanthrope with krak missles which I fail the 3+ invol. Man I am really hating tyranids right now. He also kills my zoanthropes that dropped with his Crusader. UGGH!!!


Turn 5 brings me close to loosing as I cannot kill his terminators fast enough. I even move my HQ tervigon into combat and do a whopping 1 casualty. I shoot everything at Vulkan and cause 1 wound. I also stun a speeder but that is it. The Tervigon on my right comes down out of cover to maybe get in combat. Oh, no he doesn't because I don't roll high enough to get him out of cover. I see a pattern here. I take another wound on the tyrant and kill a few more. I actually win combat but he makes his morale check. he shoots guants and they die, but that is ok becaue I am just making more.


Turn 6 brings Vulkan in the middle of a lot of guants. The most broken man in the marine codex finally goes down to guant fire. It is but a minor victory in the loosing battle as I finally kill the terminators but am left in the open with the swarmlord to get shot and die. He forgot the swarmlord has 5 wounds and almost made a fatal mistake, but he just killed him with the last 2 guys who went to ground in the open on 6's. Really? Yes. Turn 7 is the same I make guants he kills them with what he has left. I hold 2 objectives but he contests both and so wins 2-0.



What I learned. The tyranids are difficult to play. Dawn of war screws tyranids badly. The swarmlord is overpriced and should have an invol save against shooting. He also only has 4 base attacks. That is pretty lame. I needed some longer range shooting ability, probably hive guard or a tyranofex. The venomthrope is nice but they die too fast to krak missles and the such. GW shouldn't have took away eternal warrior to synapse creatures. Tervigons can be great as long as you don't dry up or assault with them. Mawlocs are horrible! (Played 3 games now) The only reason he made up his points is because Scott made a mistake in not moving the Raider out of base. I will adjust my list and try against Scott again, hopefully with his same list. I will try adding 1 Tyrannofex and some hive guard and removing the mawloc and changing the swarmlord to a hivetyrant with twin devourers.

Good Game Scott.

I hope you enjoyed this batrep as it is my first with pictures. Give me your thoughts!

Aaron

9 comments:

  1. you know that in Dawn of war you dont HAVE to bring everything on in turn 1 right? you can choose to reserve it in the normal way, or outflank, or deep strike.

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  2. I think Stelek puts a bit too much into shooting sometimes.

    I've seen Anonymous Foodie put up some good battles with his nids.
    I think you read his post about nids.

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  3. I'm not saying it's the only way to write a 'nids list. I like list with a lot of shooting myself. I tend not to play many assault elements.

    If I played Tyranids, I'd probably change up the troops, elites, and HQ's. I would take less hive gaurd and add in some warriors, but I like the combination of the harpies and tyranofexes.

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  4. I agree I need more shooting. I believe 1 tyrannofex and 2 hive guard combined with the Hive Tyrant provide that shooting at 1750. With 2000 I would probably definitely make some changes.

    @ATR. I know I don't have to bring everything on, but against a Vulkan list why would you keep anything off. The Vulkan list is a 12" to 24" army anyways. Getting the Trygon's close was a big deal, but it didn't work out and the list needs some shots to lob over the heads of the screaming gaunts.

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  6. I agree, the codex is subpar, but I'll be honest, the list isn't "par" itself.
    It looks like you threw every model you had into a list.
    you put both powers on both tervigons but didn't bother giving them tox sacs or adrenal glands? why not? It makes the gaunts near him that much better. gaunts go from wounding on 5+ init 4, to wound on rerolls 4+ init 5.
    Not to mention that tervigons can then start killing MCs with those upgrades.
    I'd find the points to make both tervigons troops, cause you can easily be lacking in the troop department.
    And why put Toxin sacs on trygons? why oh why why. It makes me cry everytime i see someone do this. 4+ rerolls is far worse than 2+. Even against MCs, your should be wounding on 3+ or 4+. Either you are outclassing an MC in combat, (like a tervigon or tyrannofex) or you are outclassed in combat (Deamon prince, Avatar).

    Give them adrenal glands, makes them better against vehicles, and the init boost will be very effective against most Init4 and 5 models.

    Then most other things are mostly preference. I don't think the swarmlord is worth his points, especially under 2k. I'd rather have a normal tyrant with a 2+ armor.
    I don't see that lone Zoan doing much, with out a pod he will die before he even gets his first shot off, or get canceled by a hood. Venomthropes are ok at best, more of a nuisance, but if they work for you that's good too.

    Stelek does like shooting a lot, but nids really have become a shooting army, they are massive shooting platforms that take forever to kill and can handle themselves in combat.
    I think hive guard and/or tyrannofex will serve you well.

    Honestly your list seems unfocused, Swarmlord and Tervigons are midfield support, while your trygons want to hit combat asap. you're venomthrope is then going to have to decide which element it wants to stay with, while your lone zoanthrope dies early on. You're sitting there hoping for your other zoanthropes early on, so you can pop some transports.

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  7. @gravemind,

    I agree with everything you said oh master of the nids. Really I got wiped pretty bad here. I am still in the old mindset where I played alot of carnifexes. I played against Scott again today with the changes I made and did.... well evey worse since it was annihilation and I didn't want to spit out too many gaunts.

    The Hive Guard are really a must as I saw today in a second game with my Wolves against Scott Playing nids. I still beat the nids down, but the hive guard are incredible. I am almost thinking that throwing in some of the other supporting units such as Ymarl's, Harpy's, Hormaguants could make this army better. But against two landraiders, they SUUUUUCCCKKKKKK!!!!!! Either that or it is just me. :). Back to the drawing board.

    Gravemind, we still need to get in that game whenever you can get off work. :)

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  8. Definitely take my words into consideration, but they are not law. Find the way that fits your own style of play.
    If you are looking for some hive guard or something, let me know, I'm not really using mine at the moment.

    Hopefully we can get that game in sometime soon. You can try out you're Nids against my Marines, You can borrow what ever you need.

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