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I've been seeing a lot of lists with two hive commander tyrants proposed on various boards, and I think these lists are seriously flawed from the beginning. So I was glad when, in a 1600 point tournament at the FLGS this weekend, I got the chance to test my "dual hive commanders are a liability" theory against a nid opponent. His army looked like this:

-Hive Tyrant with dual talons, hive commander, guard X2
-Hive Tryrant with wings, dual talons, hive commander
-2X15 Gants
-4X15 Genestealers
-Unit of 15? Gargoyles
-2 Trygons

Admittedly, this is a tyranid army in transition. It has the 4th edition dual-tyrant configuration and is going for a stealer shock kind of effect with the 60 stealers, and the lack of hive guard really is a glaring weak spot. But he did throw in the trygons and jack everything up with various toxins, so it has some part of the 5th edition lethality too.

My 1600 point mech marines look like this:
-Librarian, null zone, avenger
-2 Dreads with MM/DCCW
-1 Rifleman Dread
-Unit of 6 scouts with camo, sniper rifles & HB
-2X5 marines, combi-flamer sergeant in a Stronos razorback (lascannon and plasma), 1 dozer blade
-Unit of 5 marines, combi-flamer sergeant in an assault cannon razorback, dozer blade
-2 typhoon speeders
-1 MM/HF speeder
-2 Dakka preds
-Whirlwind

Credit to Stelek's "best of" series for the seed of this list. The mismatched dread and whirlwind are limitations on the models that I have available, but the essential dynamic of having every FoC slot filled with something cheap that moves & shoots is there. The most expensive single unit in the list is the rifleman at 125 points.

It was a 5X5 mission with an objective in the center and one in each quadrant, dawn of war deployment. My opponent won the roll and chose first turn. He deployed his guarded tyrant near the center of the board and a unit of gants in ruins on top of each of the two objectives on his side, flyrant, trygons & gargoyles deepstriking, genestealers outflanking. I put a unit of scouts in a ruin on top of one objective on my side and put everything else in *reserve*--not driving on the table in turn 1, but rolling for them starting turn 2.

His turn one, he shuffles around. My turn one I throw some sniper shots at the tyrant and do nothing, which is good because I think I forgot to roll night fight.

His turn 2 now hive commander kicks in. We agreed before the game that the power would work even if the tyrants weren't on the table, so he's got everything arriving on a 2+. Even so, some bad rolling keeps the trygons and one unit of stealers out, so he gets 3 units of stealers, the flyrant, and the gargoyles. Two of the stealer units come in on my far right, and one on my left, but there's nothing on the table for him to charge except those scouts (on my left) and he doesn't want to get rapid-fired by my entering marines next turn. So he doesn't take the bait and hangs back on his half of the table in cover. The flyrant scatters into the center of the table near the scouts, and the gargoyles land right next to it, to provide some cover from entering units.

Now we're in exactly the situation Von Mellenthin described in Panzer Battles why Rommel did so well in North Africa. I've got a smaller force that could easily be trounced by his heavy stuff, but I have the advantage of intelligence. I know where he is before I decide where my guys should go, so I can concentrate my forces on a weak point and take on his larger force piecemeal.

And the hive commanders have just made it worse by insuring everything arrives on turn 2. His whole "alpha strike" force has arrived, but there was nothing for them to strike because I went second and put everything in reserve. Hive commander doesn't give you the option of *not* adding the +1 to the reserve roll, so he had no choice but to put all his stuff on the table. So now they're just hanging around on the board like big targets, some in cover, but some in places where I can just reposition LoS to bypass their cover.

So I pull a refused flank to my left. I drive on and set up my "parking lot" of tanks with not enough space for the tygons to deepstrike between/behind them, more than 15" from the left board edge to minimize the chance that the last unit of stealers will be able to assault if they come in on that side. I had phenomenal reserves rolling and got everything except one razorback, but with half of what I got I still would have had enough firepower to do what I did next, which was toast the gargoyles with heavy flamers to remove the flyrant's cover, then light him up with AP2 shots until he died. I even had enough shots left over to take out a tyrant guard in cover.

My opponent's turn 3 he gets the rest of his reserves--two trygons and 15 more stealers--but a bad outflank roll brings the stealers in with the other two units on my right, where all 45 of those stealers are basically out of the fight because it'll take them 2-3 turns to even come close to something they can assault. So the advantage of entering after your opponent is already on the table became plain--that I was able to avoid fighting half his army. 2 units of stealers, the guarded tyrant and one unit of gants (who spent most of the game lurking out of synapse) never actually did anything the whole game because they were too far away from where I entered the board. I had total fire superiority on the left side of the board, with my whole army against half of his.

So when the trygons deepstruck in front of my parking lot, it was just a matter of rolling dice. The first one died in turn 3 with enough leftover shots to put 2 wounds on the second one. It fleeted into a dread and killed it at the cost of another wound, then in turn 4 I finished it off and started grabbing objectives on the left half of the board, flaming and tank-shocking the gants and stealers off them to make room for my units in razors. All the synapse was gone on that side, so one unit of gants actually fell back off the board from a failed tank shock test.

Because I had to shove things around and interdict movement in turns 4-5, a couple of units of stealers got to hit vehicles in that turn. But because the vehicles were moving fast--even with massed attacks and rending--they weren't able to kill more than one razor (and that squad disembarked, flamed the stealers off an objective, and claimed it in the last turn). I knew I was pretty safe driving in among the stealers from past experience. They just can't catch a fast-moving vehicle consistently.

Time ran out at the bottom of turn 5 and I was sitting on 3 objectives (2 of which I cleared in the last turn) and the max 5KPs (I actually scored more) for a total of 8 battle points. My opponent had his 1 objective he'd started with, plus 2KPs for a total of 3 battle points. Win for the mech marines.

Admittedly, it was a tough matchup for the nid player, and I did have some stellar luck on my reserves rolls. But his failed reserves on the trygons and one unit of stealers actually *helped* him, because there was still nothing for him to assault in turn 2 and I had to deploy more centrally than I would have if I'd already known where those units were going to be. If there had already been 3 units of stealers on my far right in turn 2 when my guys arrived, I would have come in on my far left corner and those stealers would have been out for the duration. As it was, the trygons and turn-3 unit of stealers were able to react to my deployment, which is why they are the only units that managed to score any KPs during the game.

And even though I have mech marines, it doesn't take any special army build or brilliant tactical insight to pull off my counter to the dual hive commanders. As Eldar players with 2 autarchs have known for a long time, an alpha strike based on +2 to reserves only works (1) in the 50% of games where you get to go second or (2) if your opponent is clueless enough to deploy anything when you're going first.

Good report. It's nice to read some decent writing for a change. Needs pictures though...

I'm curious about some of your conclusions: what do you suppose would have happened if the Tyranid force had gone second? What do you suppose would have happened if the Tyranid player had deliberately caused his Deep Strike units to Mishap?

If I go first and I deploy, then I'd have to turtle up. I'd build my parking lot in a corner by moving a conga line along the board edge with the foremost vehicles having moved >7" so they can eat a stealer charge without getting hurt, and the more vulnerable vehicles inside of them. Not leaving enough space between the vehicles in the line would prevent the stealers being able to enter the interior of the parking lot, so they'd have to come in at the leading edge at the closest. But it would be a hard fight because I'd have to keep moving, which decreases my firepower, or take extreme measures to deal with the stealers in my area and try to turn to fight the deepstriking monsters before they're on top of me.

If I go first and the nid player goes second and I start everything in reserve, then he'll get the drop on me in turn 2, when half his army can outflank/deepstrike in reaction to the half of my army that entered in my turn 2. So if I decided to go that way, then I'd split whatever I got from reserve in turn 2 and put one half in each of my 2 corners. Then when all his units drop on turn 2, he has to go one way or the other, unless he wants to let me divide his force. So I send my remaining reserves as they arrive in on the side where he's not, sacrifice the units caught where he is, and I get the refused flank advantage again.

That would be a much tougher call, though. But in general, I think my argument is that there's an advantage to already knowing where your opponent's army is that is more important than a pure advantage in numbers.

If the nid player wants to instakill 1/3 of his army and let me deploy another 1/3 by trying to mishap, that's fine by me. Personally I think it would be easier not to spend 50-whatever points on two hive commander upgrades in the first place.

giggity good job

this report supports the idea stealers are not an answer to transports, a DS army needs shooting ability,also a pure CC army has serious problem against mech list. I can imagine even the nids player goes second ,he will still have a very hard time against mech SM, really bad matchup. glad to see the tacitcal analysis ,this is a classic example for these two types of list.

Stealer shock is no longer very viable. It is very easy to counter by castling up in the middle. A more balanced reserves 'nid list would include Zoa-pods, hive guards to annoy the heck out of you and possibly Ymgarl genes, one of the best specialty units around.

So throw in a couple of Mawlocs if someone is going to try and castle up.

Nice report. I'm not sure it's evidence that dual hive commanders is a bad idea though, it's more like an example of how just because your army can do something doesn't mean you always should.

Maybe he got excited about going first in dawn of war and cutting off half the board, but it seems obvious he should have let you go first, or chosen to infiltrate the stealers in order to force you to place more things on the board. Ever since the outflank rule came out in 5e it often feels like infiltrate doesn't even exist anymore for some players.

Well you have given us good analysis how the game might have played out had the turns gone the other way but I can't help but think that luck really hindered the xenos player. To me it would have been quite interesting if the Nid player has better rolls for his outflanking units. Note his army did seem a little heavy for the points level.

Great tactics and strategies! Kudos to you on the big win. Your game play was quite sound to say the least.

G

Thanks for the positive feedback. The whole Polish-puzzle-box nature of who goes first and who is in reserve in 5th edition is really interesting.

Also I forgot to give credit to Fritz for his youtube series on playing the basic missions with space marines that opened my eyes to the value of mech marines going second from reserve.

Nice report, and great analysis!

We need more bat reps like this.