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Just had a practice game against my brother's proxied Blood Angels army. He wanted to test out a new build and I wanted to test out my new "competitive" nid build. Then when I saw his list, my jaws dropped. Holy Shiatzu!!! This may be the toughest challenge yet for my nids.


HIVE FLEET PANDORA (My list)
Swarmlord
1x Tyrant Guard w/Lash Whips
Hive Tyrant - 2x TL-Devourers, Old Adversary
1x Tyrant Guard w/Lash Whips

3x Hive Guards
3x Hive Guards

Tervigon - Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs
Tervigon - Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs
10x Termagants
10x Termagants

Carnifex - 2x TL-Devourers
Trygon - Adrenal Glands
Trygon - Adrenal Glands

Total - 2000


BLOOD ANGELS
Mephiston

10x Assault Terminators - 2 LC's, 8 TH/SS
10x Assault Terminators - 2 LC's, 8 TH/SS
3x Sanguinary Priests - 1x Jump Pack + Power Weapon, 2x Terminator Armors

10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Infernus Pistol, Power Weapon
10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Infernus Pistol, Power Weapon

5x Devastators - 4x Missile Launchers

Total - 2000


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pre-game Analysis:

Tyranids: There's really 2 main armies that I fear. One is my own Space Wolves Rune-Priest spam. The other is assault terminator-spam. I was expecting my brother's list to be hard-hitting, maybe with Mephiston, Death Company and some dreads. I wasn't expecting it to be this hard hitting - Mephiston and Feel No Pain terminators with 2+/3++ saves. Mephiston and 1 squad of termies I could probably handle. But Mephiston and 2 squads of assault termies?!? If he plays it right, I won't be able to get to his squishier assault marines without having to go through his terminators first, and I'm not sure I can do that head-on, even with the Swarmlord. You know how hard it is to kill just 1 terminator? Since I don't have any AP 1/2 guns, it'll take 12 failed saves just to down 1 of them. That's 12 shots that successfully wound them. FNP is bad. FNP on terminators is just plain disgusting. And while I'm trying to take down his termies, it's open season for his devastators on my monstrous creatures. They don't have to worry about anything but just keep shooting.

The best chance I have is probably on Seize Ground. I'll probably have up to 8 scoring units to his 4 combat squads, though he does have the mobility advantage. I'm pretty much playing for a draw in Capture and Control as I'll be too busy fending off his 3 deathstar units to go after his objective. And in annihiliation, he's only got 9KP's to my 13+ KP's and good luck trying to kill those 2 terminator squads. I definitely don't want annihilation. Where is dual-lash and 9 oblits when you need them?

My strategy, the only thing I can really do to avoid getting tabled, is to generate tons of gaunts, use them as screens and just shoot the sh*t out of his army...even in KP missions. And in order to win I need 2 things to happen:

1) I need to roll well.
2) I need him to not roll well.


Blood Angels: Kill and then kill some more. Go for the table. 'Nuff said, though I hope he assaults my Swarmlord with Mephiston. That'll be an interesting battle. Combat squad in Seize Ground and maybe Capture and Control. Otherwise, use his assault marines to support his terminators either to "thin out the horde of screens" or 3 meltas for the big guys.

What happened? This isn't a battle report.

Sorry, but I'll be posting the batrep a little later....after I get off work.

Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Initiative: Tyranids, but I make him go 1st

Deployment:
There is a large area terrain in the middle of the board. On both its left and right are an impassable terrain that blocks LOS. There are 4 other smaller patches of area terrain - 2 on my side and 2 on his.

He deploys both terminator squads up front on his deployment line with a terminator Sanguinary Priest in each. Between them also up front is his devastator squad (I believe he did this to maximize their field of fire - so that it's harder for me to use the impassable terrains to block his LOS). Behind each termie squad were his assault marines (Sang. Priest was with his right assault squad but positioned between the 2 assault squads). Mephiston hid behind his left terminators.

I deploy my gaunts up front forming a wall. I put, from left to right, my tervigon w/out FNP, Swarmlord and dakkarant in the center behind the gaunts and castle up the rest of my units around them. The FNP tervigon hid behind my dakkarant and the dakkafex behind the Swarmlord. To the flanks are the hive guards and then the trygons on the outside of my castle. Thus, besides 1 tervigon and the trygons, all my TMC's (Tyranid Monstrous Creatures) got cover.

I don't try to seize the initiative.


Blood Angels 1
Everyone moves forward. Left termies run 6" and right termies run 4". Assault squad and Mephiston stays behind them. Devastators fire at the Swarmlord, but thanks to cover, only inflicts 1 wound which I put on the Swarmlord himself.


Tyranids 1
Both Tervigons spawn 13 gaunts each. Not a bad start. I move everything forward except for the hive guards. I try to stay out of the charge range of his termies, though I miscalculate the left gaunts and move them just in his left terminators' threat range. Tervigon FNP's the Swarmlord. In shooting, I unload everything into the terminators, killing 1 from each squad (it would've been more, but he made about 5 FNP saves).

Blood Angels: 0, Tyranids: 0


Blood Angels 2
He moves everything forwards again, with Mephiston flying towards my left Trygon. The devastators put 2W on my right Trygon. Left terminators assault my left gaunts, wipe them out and consolidates 1" away from the rest of my units. Mephiston fleets and just makes it into assault with my Trygon. Here he makes a crucial mistake. He tries to get off both Unleash Rage and the Sanguine Sword on 3d6 but fails with Unleash Rage. I then tell him that he can't use his force weapon as he had also used Wings of Sanguinius. Doesn't matter, he says, I'll still kill your trygon.

TYRANID'S PLAY OF THE GAME
He proceeds to roll badly with his hits and only does 2 wounds to my trygon. I, in turn, need 4's to hit (though with re-rolls) and 4's to wound. I then proceed to hit with all 6 attacks and then wound him 5 times. Regular trygon takes out super-trygon. Bye, bye Mephie-baby. WHO 'YO DADDY NOW!!!

Blood Angels: 1, Tyranids: 1


Tyranids 2
My tervigons both spawn 10 gaunts, though the right tervigon (w/FNP) craps out. My guys move back slightly just enough for the gaunts to advance and form a wall again. The 2 trygons advance instead. In shooting I concentrate almost all my firepower into the terminators again, killing 2 from each squad (this time, he made 6 FNP saves). One of the cluster spines from my tervigons scatter backwards and hit my own gaunts, killing 1. My left trygon charges his left assault marines and kill 5. They fail to wound it but pass Morale.

Blood Angels: 1, Tyranids: 1


Blood Angels 3
The right assault squad moves towards the dakkafex but only puts 1W on it with 3 meltas and bolt pistols. The left terminators decide to charge forwards into the gaunts instead of backwards towards the trygon locked in cc with the assault squad. They wipe out the screen of gaunts, losing 1 terminator in the process (another 1 made his FNP). The right terminators multi-charge the trygon and right gaunts. They lose 2 but wipe out both the trygon and gaunts. Meanwhile, the left trygon locked in cc with his assault squad takes 1W but wipes out the squad.

Blood Angels: 3, Tyranids: 2


Tyranids 3
My left tervigon spawns another 13 gaunts. The right, sterile tervigon FNP's the dakkafex. They all move back slightly so that the gaunts can move forwards to form another wall between them and the terminators. I've been forgetting to use the Swarmlord's psychic powers and finally use them this turn. My Paroxysm fails and the Swarmlord perils on Psychic Scream on snake-eyes (1,1). It goes off and kills 1 assault marine.

My shooting kills another assault marine, 3 terminators from left squad (2 termies + Sang. Priest left) and none from right terminator squad (I believe he made 3-4 FNP saves). The trygon then makes it into assault with his 2nd assault marine squad. It kills 5 marines and the Sang. Priest without taking a wound and they fall back 11". It then consolidates forwards so that they wouldn't be able to regroup next turn.

Blood Angels: 3, Tyranids: 3


Blood Angels 4
The assault marines fall back another 13". The devastators put 1W on the trygon (2W left), and both terminators assault the 2 squads of gaunts in front of them. The left termies whiff badly and only kill 2 gaunts. Another 2 dies to No Retreat. The right termies are able to pull off a multi-charge on 2 squads of gaunts and wipes them both out, losing only 1 termie in the assault.

Blood Angels: 5, Tyranids: 3


Tyranids 4
My tervigon spawns 9 gaunts and doesn't roll doubles (it does, however, roll triple 3's). This turn, I plan to kill off his terminators in assault. Both hive guards move forwards and then run miserably (they both run only 1" each). They are going after his assault marines and devastators. I don't screen out with my gaunts this time and instead move my TMC's forwards. The trygon moves and fleets towards his devastators.

BLOOD ANGELS' HALL OF SHAME
My dakkarant opens fire on his right terminators. With 12 shots hitting on 3's with re-rolls and then needing 2's to wound, it wounds them 9 times. They take their saves and roll:


Math quiz: what's the probability of that happening? But thanks to FNP, only 3 termies and the Sanguinary Priest die.

The Swarmlord then paroxies the right terminators, reducing their WS to 1, and both tyrants charge the 2 surviving terminators, wiping them out. They both consolidate forwards. The trygon tries to charge his devastators but is out of range. In the combat between the left termies and gaunts, the terminators kill another 4 gaunts and 3 more dies to No Retreat.

Blood Angels: 5, Tyranids: 5


Blood Angels 5
Not much left for the BA to do. The assault marines automatically regroup and move towards the impassable terrain, keeping within melta range of the trygon, though they are out of infernus pistol range. The marines and devastators focus fire on the trygon and take it down. In assault, the terminators only take down 1 gaunt and surprisingly, my gaunts also take down 1 terminator for a tied combat.

Blood Angels: 6, Tyranids: 5


Tyranids 5
Everything moves forwards towards his devastators + assault marines. One tervigon moves towards the assault terminators in combat. The tervigon FNP's the dakkarant. The units that don't shoot run. Swarmlord casts Prefered Enemy on the tervigon.

The dakkarant and left hive guards are just in range of his assault marines and fire. They wipe out the 3 assault marines. The tervigon charges the terminators in assault with the gaunts. There's only 1 terminator and the Sang. Priest left, and they only manage to kill 1 gaunt. In return, the gaunts and tervigon wipe them out.

Blood Angels: 6, Tyranids: 8

We roll to see if the game continues and it does.


Blood Angels 6
Should the devastators stay or should they run? I'm not sure if he's been keeping track of kill points (I wasn't), but I thought that it might have been smarter to run away and try to keep his devastators alive. I also thought either he might have been ahead in KP's or it's a tie so far. Anyways he decides to stay and shoot. He fires at my dakkarant but only puts 2W on them (1 on tyrant and 1 on guard).

Blood Angels: 6, Tyranids: 8


Tyranids 6
I advance everything and let his devastators have it with my dakkarant and 2 squads of hive guards. I wipe them out and he is tabled.

Blood Angels: 6, Tyranids: 9


Victory to Hive Fleet Pandora!!!

Gratz though you were pretty lucky.

Nice read. I thought the Terminators were going to wipe the floor with you as I read the first couple of turns.

Next time remember Paroxysm earlier, Terminators hitting on fives is quite funny!

Lyracian wrote:Nice read. I thought the Terminators were going to wipe the floor with you as I read the first couple of turns.

Me too. Hence, the concern. Monstrous creatures always have a hard time against assault terminators. TMC's just can't put up the volume of attacks necessary to deal with them in assault. That's why I opted to stall them and concentrate on shooting and whittling them down.

Lyracian wrote:Next time remember Paroxysm earlier, Terminators hitting on fives is quite funny!

Yeah, I admit that I'm a noob with the Swarmlord. Only ever used him once, and he got killed early by exorcists and melta-spam witchhunter sisters. But with more practice using him, I'll get better.

Congrats on your Well earned Victory! That list is a nightmare to nids, for sure!

And now for the anaylsis:

TYRANIDS:
Swarmlord - B. Wasn't really utilized to his full potential but is my most threatening unit in assault.

Hive Tyrant (Dakkarant) - A. Highly effective with its shooting. Shot down lots of Blood Angels. Though he's expensive, he's still my favorite unit in the entire Tyranid army (along with Hive Guards and Trygons).

Tyrant Guards - B. Their main purpose is to prolong the life of my tyrants, and in this regard, they always succeed.

Hive Guards - B. Normally, one of my favorite units when going up against mech armies. However, against non-mech armies, they are about average.

Tervigon - A-. Just by not crapping out early and spawning so many gaunts, they are a win in my books. Couldn't have done it without the gaunts they created. The fact that it helped to finish off the terminator and Sang. Priest is just icing on the cake.

Termagants - A. They did what they had to do - which was to stop the terminator onslaught and die. Couldn't ask of any more for these guys. Was one of the main reasons my strategy worked. Killing a couple of termies was a pleasant bonus.

Carnifex (Dakkafex) - C+. Average. I played it somewhat conservatively. Did not make back it's points, though it did kill some.

Trygon - A+. Awesome this game. Overachieved.


BLOOD ANGELS:
Mephiston - C. Normally this guy kicks ass. Last time I played against him in the 'Ard Boyz, he killed Ragnar, 2 rune priests and a bunch of grey hunters. This time, he got OWNED, JACKED and PWNED!!! Still a scary dude. Wouldn't want to bump into him in a dark alley.

Assault Marines - A. The Baddest A$$es on army full of BA's.

Sanguinary Priests - A. The reason why his list was so tough.

Assault Marines - C. Not very assaulty here, but who can blame them. Trygons will whoop normal MEQ's 8 days a week.

Devastators - B. A nuisance more than an actual threat. Target selection could've been better. Should have aimed for my trygons rather than tyrants with cover. Did pick off 2 wounds off each trygon.


MVP's:
Assault Terminators - got all the KP's.

Trygons - took out Mephiston, both assault squads and a couple of terminators. Did a lot more than I expected.

I'm not that surprised that you won. Termies on foot and not deepstriking? Even if you found yourself in CC with them, you have 7 MC's all with attacks that ignore Armor saves AND FNP. If there is a re-match I would expect you'd win again.

BTW good job killing the Termies. Always like seeing them go down.

Well done, and good job.

I do have to say that if there are only two lists you fear with tyranids, you need some exposure to Orks and Dark Eldar.

Dashofpepper wrote:Well done, and good job.

I do have to say that if there are only two lists you fear with tyranids, you need some exposure to Orks and Dark Eldar.

Ha, ha. You're right. I would love to play against a good ork or DE general. I've played against orks before with my IG, space wolves, old tyranids and daemonhunters and have yet to lose to them (with the exception against 1 ork player @ 1500 with 2 biker warbosses, 2 nob biker units and 1 unit of grots). But I didn't feel that those armies were overly competitive.

As for DE, I've faced them 4 times against more capable generals and I'm 2-2. With my old nids, I'm 1-1. This coming week I'm probably going to play against a tournament-DE army which I was trying to set up a game against from before the 'Ard Boyz. I'm bringing my nids and I'm looking forwards to it. Just hope I don't get tabled.

haha good im glad someone recognizes the power of assualt termies =] i have a regular opponent, and his first game he cared little for them, until they chewed through a CC fex, 3 warriors, 12 genestealers and ended the game in combat with 15 hormagaunts... needless to say when they deepstrike, theres no need to assualt with them at all, his nids just run away from that side of the board! =D

Assault termies are good, but they're by no means awesomesauce. Here's a battle I had against a Tyranid 'Ard Boyz semi-finalist, only this time I was playing assault-termie-heavy BA instead. I got whooped. What it takes to stop them, and any other assault-heavy army, is a lot of cheap screening units. That is something Nids can do quite well with their tervigons. Then just overwhelm them with mass of shooting or assault.

Still, BA have the BEST assault terminators in the game as long as a sanguinary priest is nearby. 2+/3++ w/ a 4+ FNP. they never die!!!

tetrisphreak wrote:Still, BA have the BEST assault terminators in the game as long as a sanguinary priest is nearby. 2+/3++ w/ a 4+ FNP. they never die!!!

IMO they have the 2nd best. BA assault termies are the toughest, no question about that. However, the best assault terminators would be 30 fleeting assault termies in a Shrike Ravenguard army.

IMO Space Wolves have some pretty good Terminators. They are cheap, comes with a lot of options. Sure their TH/SS variant is 13 points extra, but they have Counter-attack!

not sure why you even advanced on his army, it was KP, and you could have just sat back with a gant wall and used your hive guard to pluck off his devs until his other things reached your lines. It would have saved you a lot of early easy KP losses.

i love how people have stopped posting pics... i mean all those visual aids just got in the way...

SabrX wrote:IMO Space Wolves have some pretty good Terminators. They are cheap, comes with a lot of options. Sure their TH/SS variant is 13 points extra, but they have Counter-attack!

Their terminators are good, but not their assault terminators. They're friggin 63pts!!! Their only advantage is that they can be scoring units with Logan as HQ. Counter-attack is ok, but nowhere near as nice as fleet, furious charge and feel no pain.

Mafty wrote:not sure why you even advanced on his army, it was KP, and you could have just sat back with a gant wall and used your hive guard to pluck off his devs until his other things reached your lines. It would have saved you a lot of early easy KP losses.

His devastators were about 36" away and he had a lot less KP's than my nids. I wasn't in range to shoot them. Anyways I ignored his devs until the end as I had my hands full against 20 FNP assault terminators and Mephiston. I had my hands full against them as I had to direct all my fire against them. FNP termies are damn tough, especially when you have no guns that can bypass their FNP+regular armor saves. I was just lucky that I crapped out a sh*tload of gants.

whitewolf0231 wrote:i love how people have stopped posting pics... i mean all those visual aids just got in the way...

As this was the first time we were playing Blood Angels, we used a lot of proxying, so I decided not to take pictures.

assault terminators are quite good if used right hav not heard of mephiston before is he in the blood angels