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Just played a tough game today against a very tough army. This is a 1st for the both of us: my first time with the new nids and his first time playing an Immolator-spam Witchhunter list (though he is a Witchhunter veteran). Alas, I didn't finish building my Trygons in time so I was forced to use my carnifexes instead. I tried to do as much WYSIWYG as I could but had to do some proxying as I didn't have all the models/weapons. Anyways, it was quite an interesting experience for me. Without further ado, the lists:


Hive Fleet Pandora (Mine)

Swarmlord
Hive Tyrant - Heavy Venom Cannon, Hive Commander, Wings

2x Hive Guards
2x Zoanthropes - Mycetic Spore
5x Ymgarl Genestealers

Tervigon - Crushing Claws (only because my carnifex-proxy had crushing claws)
11x Termagaunts

Harpy

Carnifex - Mycetic Spore
Carnifex - Heavy Venom Cannon, Mycetic Spore
Carnifex - 2x Twin-linked Devourers w/Brainleech Worms, Mycetic Spore






Witchhunters

Canonness - Book
5x Celestian retinue - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes

5x Celestian - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes
5x Celestian - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes
5x Celestian - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes

10x Battle Sisters - VSS, Book, Heavy Flamer, Melta
Rhino - Smokes
10x Battle Sisters - VSS, Book, Heavy Flamer, Melta
Rhino - Smokes
5x Inquisitorial Storm Troopers - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes (Heavy Support)

5x Dominions - 2x Flamers, 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes
5x Dominions - 2x Flamers, 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes
5x Dominions - 2x Flamers, 2x Meltas
Immolator - Smokes

Exorcist
Exorcist
Immolator - Smokes (Inquisitorial Storm Troopers)






Pre-game Assessment:
2 Rhinos
2 Exorcists
8 Immolators
8 Faith points
16 Templates
18 Meltas

This is going to be a tough, tough battle. With all his faith and meltas, I think he can reliably take down 2-3 monstrous creatures a turn if they could all fire. And all his Immolators are like fast vehicles in that they can move 12" and still fire their heavy flamers (and twin-linked heavy flamers to boot). If I had taken a gribblie list, he would've taken me down hard and fast. Come to think of it, with all his low-AP guns, he'll probably even take down my TMC's hard and fast. My only chance is in a Kill Point mission. He has lots of it, but it's not as easy with my limited shooting and the fact that I'll mainly be hitting his Immolators on 6's. I think my chances look kinda bleak. I'd be happy to come out with a draw.



Map:


All buildings played as impassable. The forested areas and fields played as area terrain. The river played as difficult terrain.


Mission: Capture and Control


Sister's objective.


Tyranid's objective.

I kinda hoped it would be Kill Points, but I'll take 1 objective as opposed to multiple objectives.


Deployment: Spearhead


Sister's deployment. The 2 exorcists stay in the back. Everything else with a turret is an immolator.


Nid deployment. Everything but the Swarmlord, flyrant and 2 hive guards stay in reserves.


Initiative: Witchhunters win and decide to go first.



Sisters Turn 1


Everything advances. The exorcists only manage to put 1 wound on my flyrant.


Nids Turn 1
I move my flyrant, making sure it gets cover from both exorcists (it didn't get cover from 1 exorcist last turn). My hive guards shoot off the heavy flamer from 1 of the immolators and the Swarmlord assaults the closest immolator, wrecking it despite needing 6's to hit. Not a bad start. Now let's hope my HQ's live to see turn 2.




Sisters Turn 2


The sisters advance. The squad of Inquisitorial stormtroopers disembark and melta my hive guards, killing 1. The rest of his army, including the 2 exorcists, pump my Swarmlord full of molten lead, burning promethium and exploding rockets, reducing him to just a single wound left (whewwww...glad he didn't die)


Nids Turn 2


All 3 carnifexes and harpy decide to drop on in for luncheon. The tervigon also comes in, outflanking on the right table edge thanks to the Swarmlord's Alien Cunning (I re-rolled the outflanking board edge). As I don't have many pods, I proxied my blue rhinos and vindicator as spores. My flyrant goes after his stormtroopers and my Swarmlord his disembarked celestians. My hive guard and spores shake/stun a few transports. All 3 heavy venom cannons whiff (carnifex, flyrant and harpy). My Swarmlord gets his Leech Essence pass the celestians' Shield of Faith and kills 1 sister while regaining 1 wound.


My dakkafex (w/TL-devourers) wrecks a rhino.


I then assault. The tervigon just makes it to the stationary exorcist and explode it. The ensuing explosion hits all 3 carnifexes and 2 spores but fails to wound any of them.


The Swarmlord destroys the celestians (he decided not to use faith to make them invulnerable so that my Swarmlord would be left out in the open next turn...a good choice).


Lastly, the flyrant wipes out the stormtroopers.


Aftermath of turn 2 - my 2 carnifexes + tervigon.


Sisters Turn 3




Play of the Game
One of the Immolators decide to tank shock my Swarmlord. The Swarmlord manages to only shake it and gets run over for his feeble efforts.


2 immolators race towards my objective to contest.


A squad of battles sisters and dominions go after my flyrant and manage to shoot it down with meltas.


Another squad of dominions go after my harpy. They take away 1 wound with shooting and then assault. For their trouble, they get swept in combat by my harpy.


2 squads of celestians (1 with Canoness) and immolator go after my carnifex. Their shooting only puts 1 wound on it. The canoness' unit then assaults, using faith to give themselves invulnerables and strength 5. No one dies and they are locked in combat.


Nids Turn 3


Everything comes in from reserves. The tervigon uses Dominion, and every unit that had to take Instinctive Behaviour tests passes (those out of synapse or that had not just come in).


The tervigon produces 7 termagaunts and they are run forwards.


The zoans drop and pop 1 immolator.


The termagaunts go towards my objective, making sure to keep maximum coherency.


The Ymgarl genes pop out of the field where his objective was and prepare to assault the unengaged celestian unit (he didn't see that one coming). He uses faith to give both celestian units invulnerable saves. My dakkafex fires at his battle sisters, they fail morale and then break. The spore (proxied using drop pod) with the zoans fire at the immolator near my ninjafex and immobilises it.

I then assault. The ninjafex (w/dual scything talons) kill one of the invulnerable celestians in cc but they hold. The genes increases their attacks by +1A and kill 2-3 invulnerable celestians from the other squad. They also hold due to being within range of the canoness' book. The sniperfex (w/heavy venom cannon) assaults the exorcist and wrecks it.


Finally, the harpy moves towards his other squad of battle sisters, misses them with its twin-linked heavy venom cannon and then assaults. They use faith to increase their strength to 5, he misses all his attacks, they wound him 3 times and I proceed to fail all 3 saves. Bye bye harpy...dumb alien bird.


Turn 3 aftermath.


Sisters Turn 4


They go after my termagaunts.


The battle sisters had a little surprise of their own. The sisters who were falling back uses faith to become fearless, thus automatically regrouping. One of the immolators tank shocks my mycetic spore (the drop pod), immobilising itself in the process due to my Death or Glory.


The celestians shoot and then assault my zoanthropes, wiping them out.

Assault continues between the genestealers and carnifex with the celestians. My genes increase their toughness by +1. He again uses faith to make his 2 celestian squads invulnerable. We remain stalemated in cc (or at least, no one broke).


Nids Turn 4
The tervigon produces another 7 babies. Not much shooting for me.


My genes wipe out the celestians and consolidate towards his battle sisters that had just regrouped. The carnifex kills a celestian and canonness (he allocated the wound to his canonness in order to reclaim 2 faith points should she die). Being no longer stubborn, they lose combat, fail morale and fall back. My carnifex consolidates to block the path towards his objective.

Sisters Turn 5


His 2 immos go full throttle after my termagaunts.


But because they were so spread out, 2 heavy flamers and some shooting from a disembarked celestian (or dominion?) squad only kill about 3-4 gaunts. Luckily my gaunts pass morale at LD6.

Again he uses faith to make his celestians who were falling back fearless. One of his immo rushes more than 6" towards his objective, only to find my ninjafex blocking their way. He thinks better of tank shocking the big beast and opted to fire a melta instead, missing it. The battle sisters open fire on my dakkafex (which was already wounded from earlier...it had maybe 1-2 wounds left) and kill it.


Nids Turn 5


Beginning of my turn 5.


My termagaunts get back in coherency and then tries to run away from the immolators. I need them alive to claim my objective just in case I can't get his celestians and battle sisters with their invulnerable saves off of his.


My tervigon and gaunts move towards his battles sisters and shoot, killing a couple. My sniperfex shoots at his immolator that had stopped in front of my ninjafex and misses.

Now for the good times...assault!


The ninjafex wrecks the immolator, but his celestians pass their pinning test.


My tervigon and termagaunts assault the battle sisters while my Ymgarl genestealers attack the celestians. The stealers increase their attacks by +1A but the celestians uses faith to give themselves invulnerables. I wipe out the battles sisters but can't get rid of the celestians. They remain stuck in combat.

Now I've got 1 objective and he has none. If the game ends now, I win.

We roll...and there will be a turn 6.


Sisters Turn 6
His celestians locked in cc with my genestealers are contesting his objective. The only chance he has right now is to wipe out my gaunts for the draw and get his last unit of battle sisters to my objective for the win. I wouldn't be able to contest my own objective if he wipes out my gaunts as I had nothing that can get there fast enough. He rolls forward 12" with his immos but is still way out of contesting range. It would probably take him another turn to get there, and even still it may not be enough to claim (but the empty immos would definitely contest).


Again because my gaunts were spread out, his flamers and 1 sister shooting (she was the only 1 within range) takes out another 3 gaunts. Once again, my gaunts make their LD 6 morale test. They hold!

His celestians that had just disembarked fail to kill my ninjafex. The other squad of celestians remained locked in cc with the genestealers.


Nids Turn 6
Not much. I believe I failed to remove his celestians (honestly I don't quite remember) so they were still contesting. At least I still have my objective if the game was to end.


We roll...and the game ends with me having 1 objective (mine) and him 0.


Minor victory by Hive Fleet Pandora!



Aftermath of the battle.


Post-game Analysis:
Looks like the nids pulled off the upset. It was a learning experience for both of us. I surprised him with a couple of moves such as the outflanking tervigon who exploded his exorcist and Ymgarl genestealers popping up from his terrain and assaulting his guys. I'm not sure he ever played against a drop-pod list as he left himself somewhat unprotected when my forces "dropped" in. All my deepstrikers and even my pods were shooting rear armor. Too bad I didn't finish my Trygons in time for this battle. Otherwise it would've been 2 trygons and 1 pod-fex instead.

He also had a couple of surprises of his own. Just when I thought his sisters would run off the board, their faith made them fearless and so they regrouped. Also, his Spirit of the Martyr is annoying as heck. Now I see why he runs such small squads (5-man). It's so each unit can more easily become invulnerable, making each small squad a tarpit.

This was a fun nid army to play. I can see how dangerous it could be. Even with all his firepower and armor, most of monstrous creatures were able to survive and cause a lot of destruction.


Play of the Game & Jim's Hall of Shame:
Both has got to be when my Swarmlord got run over by a reindeer, I mean, immo.


Unit Analysis & MVP:
Flyrant: D Didn't do too well, but absolutely essential to my strategy. But maybe next time I'll clip his wings and give him a tyrant guard instead.

Swarmlord: C Fared somewhat better. Wrecked an immo and killed a squad of celestians. Didn't make back his points, though he did make it into my Hall of Shame. As with the flyrant, absolutely essential to my gameplan. His ability to re-roll outflanking led to my Tervigon destroying the exorcist.

Hive Guards: B Not bad. Hurt a couple of immos, though didn't wreck any. They have great potential.

Ymgarl Genestealers: A Excellent unit. Deployment is awesome, with them being able to assault the turn they come in. If not for the sister's invulnerable saves, they would've done a lot more damage. They can also wreck vehicles, since most likely vehicles like the exorcist would be staying still to fire, meaning they would be auto-hit.

Zoanthropes: C Wrecked 1 immo and was then beaten in close combat. They have great potential, but definitely didn't get my money's worth out of them.

Tervigon: B I didn't really get to see what he was made of so it's somewhat hard to gauge accurately. He made some gaunts, wrecked an exorcist and then beat a weakened battle sister unit (with the help of his termagaunts). He has a lot of upside though and is probably one of the few must-haves in my army.

Termagaunts: B Didn't do much of anything besides trying not to die, but you can't ask for too much for a 50pt scoring unit.

Harpy: F Big, fat Fail-sauce. Under-performed, big-time.

Mycetic Spores: A The main reason I'm playing the nids again. Finally we can compete in mobility. Moreover, they did some damage shooting the backsides of some tanks. One spore even immobilised an immo by letting the immo try to run it over.

Carnifex: A Drop-podding carnifexes are just awesome. You say the carnifex is dead? I say long live the carnifex (even at these inflated prices). My main workhorses.

And the MVP goes to.......


Termagaunts!!!

By not dying (and making 2 miraculous leadership tests), they won the game for me. 'Nuff said.

Very interesting game, thanks for the write up. I really think he would have been better served moving to the center of the board with everything, and it should be mandatory to always move an Exorcist 6" a turn. I am also a bit surprised the Exorcists did not wipe one of your TMC on Turn 1.

Did your Genestealers strike at I 1 for assaulting into or out of cover? I do not think you mentioned it and I am not sure if they have grenades.

Good win against a pretty hard list.

That was a fun game we had jy2. I was overwhelmed on turn 2 by all three of your Carnifexes, Harpy, and Tervigon bearing down on me. It was a close game. Once again your brilliant setup in exploiting Spearhead Capture + Control by placing your objective far into your far table corner got the better of me.

I look forward to a rematch!

calypso2ts wrote:Exorcist 6" a turn. I am also a bit surprised the Exorcists did not wipe one of your TMC on Turn 1.

Did your Genestealers strike at I 1 for assaulting into or out of cover? I do not think you mentioned it and I am not sure if they have grenades.

Yeah, I overestimated the Tervigon. Didn't expect it to outflank in my corner and assaulting my Exorcist.

On turn one, I rolled bad for my Exorcists D6 shots against his swarmlord.

And yes, the Celestians did strike first against the Ymgarl Genestealers, but did very little needing 5's to wound.

calypso2ts wrote:Very interesting game, thanks for the write up. I really think he would have been better served moving to the center of the board with everything, and it should be mandatory to always move an Exorcist 6" a turn. I am also a bit surprised the Exorcists did not wipe one of your TMC on Turn 1.

Did your Genestealers strike at I 1 for assaulting into or out of cover? I do not think you mentioned it and I am not sure if they have grenades.

Good win against a pretty hard list.

He didn't roll well for his exorcists and my Swarmlord's 4+ Inv helped to minimize the damage. But I believe he did put a wound on my flyrant which is why next turn I moved it behind the hill (and hive guards) to make sure I get the cover save from both exorcists.

For the Ymgarl genestealers, actually they moved out of the farm (area terrain) in the movement phase so that they didn't have to assault through cover.

Great battle report! Also Death or Glory is never worth it with a MC.

I though sawrmies 4+ was only for CC. Y genestealers rock. Did you know they can deploy normaly with the rest of your army? Didnt the harpy run down a unit in cc? isn't that worth something?

You're right about the Swarmlords 4++. That would've changed my entire strategy with him then. Yeah, I know you can deploy Y-genes normally, but why would you? Their dormant rule is freakin awesome. There's no point in taking them if you're just going to deploy them normally. The harpy ran down a 5-man celestian or dominion squad, but he didn't really do what was intended of him, which is to take down vehicles from a distance and use his mobility to help out the army. I guess I could give him a try again in the future, but there's just so many other good units in the nid list that's probably more efficient than him.

Wow. The sisters player must have just not read your codex at all.

Ymgarl genestealers don't scare me in the slightest. If I know they're coming, I'll just drive my rhinos into area terrain nearby until their reserve roll comes up. They'll either be far enough away that I don't care, or they'll just die since they can't fit in the terrain.

All in all, it seems like he was too spread out. Close support is what sisters do best. Ah well.

Spellbound wrote:Wow. The sisters player must have just not read your codex at all.

Ymgarl genestealers don't scare me in the slightest. If I know they're coming, I'll just drive my rhinos into area terrain nearby until their reserve roll comes up. They'll either be far enough away that I don't care, or they'll just die since they can't fit in the terrain.

All in all, it seems like he was too spread out. Close support is what sisters do best. Ah well.

I trust jy2 enough to know he won't pull any shenanigans on me. Still do. It was both his and my first time playing the new Nids, so give us a break.

It was also my first using Immolator Spam and I felt confident I could contest my objective and reach his. However, his brilliant deployment and me overestimating Nids deep strike/reserves got better of me.

Also, never underestimate dangerous terrain tests for vehicles.

On a realted note how did you like the Immolator spam list? Did you wish you had more basic Sisters or for another Cannonness?

I noticed you also did not run as many flamers as I do (I assume counting on the Immo's TL H Flamers) but I really like to throw 3 templates in a squad.

I loads of fun playing Immy Spam. While they didn't play much of a role in this game, my Dominions w/ 2 Flamers & 2 Meltaguns along with the Immolators did extremely will in my later games. The unit that stand out the most were the Celestians. They are faithful to the last model, proficient in assault, and cheap. Unfortunately even with my high number of Immolators, both my Exorcists were targeted first and taken quickly early in the game.

The hardest part to fielding Immy Spam was movement. Immobolized and Stunned tanks caused a traffic jam. I'm thinking of cutting down a few points to upgrade all my vehicles with extra armour.

I'm also considering changing it to 3 Battle Sister squads as opposed to 2 Battle Sisters + IST. I'll need to play more games before I come to any final conclusions.

Hey look, Game Kastle terrain! (But you didn't choose to play on Stalingrad?)

Interesting list. Given the point level, I'd be very uncomfortable running with that selection of scoring units for 'nids (if you Tervigon gets killed on the turn it arrives, no bonus 'gants for you), but the aggressive playstyle is definitely where 'nids are going now.

Thanks for sharing!

Fun read, great pics!

That was a fun read. Great batrep!

Janthkin wrote:Hey look, Game Kastle terrain! (But you didn't choose to play on Stalingrad?)

Interesting list. Given the point level, I'd be very uncomfortable running with that selection of scoring units for 'nids (if you Tervigon gets killed on the turn it arrives, no bonus 'gants for you), but the aggressive playstyle is definitely where 'nids are going now.

Thanks for sharing!

It was an experimental list and my 1st time playing the new nids. I wanted to maximize the monstrous creatures to apply as much pressure as I can (I also wanted to try some of the other units so I didn't actually "maximize" on the TMC's). Goal was to annihilate. Objectives were secondary. Definitely not a balanced list but one that will evolve.

The Tergivon can't use the Swarmlord's ability, and how did they immobilize a MC?

Klawz wrote:The Tergivon can't use the Swarmlord's ability, and how did they immobilize a MC?

Hive Commander (on normal Tyrant) would allow the Tervigon (taken as Troops) to outflank; Swarmlord's Alien Cunning would let it reroll arriving board edge.

Mycetic Spores are immobile MCs.

So Carnifexes are better than people were saying they would be? If so thats great because they're my favorite nids.

Good game to both, it was a close match. I like the SoB army looking buy it could be better if all models are painted.

IMO i would drive these tanks to contest the objective so it can also tank shocking gaunts out of sight.

Snikkyd wrote:So Carnifexes are better than people were saying they would be? If so thats great because they're my favorite nids.

As long as Jaws of the World Wolf is not around, they're still good despite the fact that they're a little over-priced compared to before. This is because you can now drop them onto your opponent's backyard to avoid the 2-3 rounds of fire that they would've had to endure if they had to footslog.

Sadetta131 wrote:Good game to both, it was a close match. I like the SoB army looking buy it could be better if all models are painted.

IMO i would drive these tanks to contest the objective so it can also tank shocking gaunts out of sight.

SabrX's immo-spam is still a WIP (work-in-progress). He's constantly working on them. I think the next batrep you see from him, they'll probably be done by then.

The problem is that he couldn't reach my objective in time due to my deployment. Well that, and the fact that he had to "waste" 1-2 turns to help take care of my monstrous creatures before he could even make it there.

Yea, jy2 and I have played three games with capture + control and spearhead. Each time it was my Sisters vs. a different army. First two games I lost (SoB vs. GK and SoB vs. Nids). In the third game, I barely won against his Space Wolves (mad luck!).

jy2 is a tough player. He fields strong lists and his tactics are well though out. I'm looking forward to what surprises he has in store for future games.


Alas I'm still working on Immy Spam army. I hope to get it done by April. However delays from shipping (wtf?! its been a month now!) and heavy work load from school may foil my future plans.

The board was full of very vibrant colors!

That was a lot of fun to go through, it was good seeing SabrX's new Immolators in action and to see how the Nids do. I've never played Nids directly (once in an Apocalypse 4v4 thing so they were on the table but not fighting me) so it's interesting for me to see how they do.