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Just had a game just before Christmas Eve at the local LGS against my friend who plays Witch Hunters Immo-spam. I brought my shooty nids.

My list:

TYRANIDS 2K (Mine)
Hive Tyrant - 2x TL-Devourers, Old Adversary
1x Tyrant Guard
Hive Tyrant - 2x TL-Devourers, Old Adversary
1x Tyrant Guard

3x Hive Guards
3x Hive Guards
2x Hive Guards

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

3x Biovores
3x Biovores
Tyrannofex - Cluster Spines, Desiccator Larvae, Rupture Cannon

1975 pts


I forgot 1 of my Hive Guards so instead threw on Old Adversary for my 2nd tyrant instead.


WITCH HUNTERS 2K
l don't have his list yet, so this is what I believe his army consists of (I could be a little off). When I get his list, I will update it here.

Palantine - don't know what wargear she has
5x Celestian retinue - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Extra Armor, Smokes

5x Celestian retinue - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Extra Armor, Smokes
5x Celestian retinue - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Extra Armor, Smokes
5x Celestian retinue - 2x Meltas
Immolator - Extra Armor, Smokes

10x Battle Sisters - VSS, 1x Heavy Flamer, 1x Melta
Rhino - Smokes
10x Battle Sisters - VSS, 1x Heavy Flamer, 1x Melta
Rhino - Smokes

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

Exorcist
Exorcist
Exorcist


7 Faith Points


The first time I played against his army, I beat him by some luck. That was when I first started playing Nids. The next time I played against him, it was a draw. Now, I'm much older and wiser with my Nids and can give a better fight. My recent competitive builds have seen me adding more hive guards as well as swapping out my trygons for a tyrannofex and biovores as I'm going towards a more shooty build in my Tyranid all-comer's list.


---------------------------------------------------


Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Dawn of War
Initiative: Tyranids, but I let the Witch Hunters go first.


---------------------------------------------------


WH1

He doesn't deploy anything. His entire army rolls in on his Turn 1.


In his Shooting phase, only 1 exorcist is able to spot my hiding hive tyrant and puts 1W on him.


TYRANIDS 1
I deploy 1 tervigon, 1 unit termagants and 1 hive tyrant (by himself and hiding behind a building).


My entire army comes in and runs. Tyrannofex hides behind a building for cover.

No shooting, just running.


WH2

His tanks roll forwards. The front immolators pop smoke.


Only his exorcists have range to anything so they put 2W on my right tervigon.


TYRANIDS 1

The left side of my army stays put. The right side of my army moves towards his tanks.


I then aim all 16 S8 impaler cannon shots, 2 S10 rupture cannon shots and 12 S6 twin-linked devourer shots at his tanks. When the smoke clears (literally), I've only managed to weapon destroy and stun (reduced to shaken) his 2 front immolators. He must have made 10+ pen cover saves!!!

Tyranids: 0, WH: 0


WH3

Sisters get into their battle positions. The 2 celestian squads disembark. Kinda reminds me of those westerns where the cowboys are surrounded by Indians.


Witch Hunter shooting puts 1W on the left hive guards and kill 2 hive guards on the right hive guards (as well as put 1W on the last hive guard).


1 of his exorcist fires and puts 1W on my lone tyrant guard trying to reach his master.


TYRANIDS 3

So far, no kill points yet. The nids on the right advance towards his tanks.


Nid shooting wrecks one of the rear immolators, forcing some dominions to disembark. I also immobilise 2 immolators. Biovores drop pie plates on the 2 front celestian units and kill 2 from each squad. He passes both pinning and morale.

No assault yet.

Tyranids: 1, WH: 0


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WH4

Witch Hunter movement. The sisters spread out. Exorcists shift over.


Dominions disembark from the immobilised immolator and go after my termagants. 1 squad of celestians get into an immolator, and 1 squad of battle sisters disembark from their rhino.


Witch Hunter shooting takes out 2 hive guards from left squad (1 left), wipes out the single-hive guard unit and reduces the right hive guard unit to just 1 hive guard with 1W remaining. He also puts 1W on my hive tyrant. Lastly, his dominions (upper-right corner) only manage to kill 9 of 10 termagants so fail to get a KP for them.

Tyranid: 1, WH: 1


TYRANIDS 4

Tyrant guard finally joins his hive tyrant master. Tervigon spawns 13 termagants and they all go after his dominions and tank. Lone termagant goes off and hides behind a building to deny him a KP.


The rest of my nids are hungry and so they go grab themselves some snacks (except for 1 hive guard who tries to get out of LOS of his exorcists).


Tyrannofex explodes an immolator. Hive guard shakes another immolator. 1 hive tyrant wipes out his unit of 3-celestians. Biovores kill several battle sisters with their blasts.

Tyranids: 3, WH: 1


The other hive tyrant immobilises and weapon destroys an immolator, and the termagants shoot down 2 dominions.


Tyrant then assaults the immobilised immolator and wrecks it. Termagants charge the dominions. Between prefered enemy from the tyrant and poisoned attacks, they wipe out the dominions.

Tyranids: 5, WH: 1


Tervigon assaults the immolator but whiffs. Tyrannofex assaults the celestians and, despite their 3++ invulns, kills 2, causing the last celestian to flee (she fails to regroup later).

Tyranids: 6, WH: 1


The tyrannofex would then consolidate behind the tervigon.


WH5

He tries to regroup his fleeing celestian by making her fearless but fails! He then moves the rest of his tanks, disembarking his sisters and getting ready to put the fear of the Ecclesiarchy into some Xenos scum.


His battle sisters fire at my 5-gant unit, who would then go to ground to deny him yet again another KP (1 gaunt left). He then pours the rest of his shooting - divine guidance sisters, exorcists, flamers, meltas and immolator - into my left, bunched-up units and whiffs completely, only managing to put 1W on my tervigon. Ouch!


TYRANIDS 5

The beginning of the end. My nids are getting ever closer. So are the sisters....to oblivion!


In shooting, tyrannofex immobilises the battle sister's rhino with its rupture cannon as well as kill a few sisters with its blast/template guns. Hive guards wreck an immolator. 1 hive tyrant fires at his celestians and kill a few, including his palantine (HQ). The other tyrant shoots at and wipes out 4 of 5 sisters (dominions?). Biovores kill a bunch of sisters, but they also manage to put 1W on their own hive guard due to scatter.

We roll to see if the game continues, and mercifully, it ends.

Tyranids: 8, WH: 1


VICTORY TO TYRANIDS!!!

Congratulations on the win. Looks like your nids enjoyed their sisters buffet (om nom nom nom nom).

It's always seemed like sisters do quite well against tyranids, but in this case it looks like cover won it for you - he couldn't concentrate fire on any one thing, and it cost him dearly. Lots of 1-w models left over!

One of the things that is so tough about my army is that I can generate my own cover using my gaunts as a screen. Thus, whether there is terrain or not, it doesn't really affect me too much.

It's all about target prioritization, and I make that hard for him by hitting his army with almost my entire force at the same time. Should he take out my easy-KP gaunts or should he concentrate on my deadly hive guards who are penetrating his tanks left and right (but who are also much tougher to kill with cover and FNP) or should he take out my tyrant who is dangerously close?

I also try to deny him kill points by taking away the easy kill points and by making him choose who to kill. He could've had a few of those - the lone tyrant guard before it could join the tyrant, 2 gaunt units each with just 1 model left and 2 hive guard units each with also just 1 model left (1 wounded). I move them out of LOS or out of range or I force him to deal with a much more dangerous threat in the form of some monstrous creatures.

That is one nicely painted Sisters army!

This seemed like a game that could have been much closer had some dice rolls been a little better for one side and a little worse for the other.

Good job forcing your opponent to choose between two horrendous situations.

It's nice to see a Tyranid win with so many players of the race threatening to quit over the abundance of poisoned and auto-wound weapons.

freddieyu1 wrote:That is one nicely painted Sisters army!

This army belongs to SabrX, who also posts here on DakkaDakka. Everytime I see his army, it's looking more and more complete, though lately he's been busy with school.

Thunderfrog wrote:This seemed like a game that could have been much closer had some dice rolls been a little better for one side and a little worse for the other.

Good job forcing your opponent to choose between two horrendous situations.

Yeah, the dice wasn't really on his side today, though he did make a lot of cover saves. Honestly, I felt that most of his tanks should have been destroyed a lot earlier from my hive guard shooting if it wasn't for his above-average cover saves. Where his dice really failed was on offense. I believe he failed to Divine Guidance his sisters twice as well as missed some crucial melta shots.

I've always had a challenging time against his army, with both my Space Wolves and my Tyranids. Though now my Nids and space puppies have both evolved to the point where he'd probably have trouble with them (actually, any army would have trouble with them).

Thunderfrog wrote:It's nice to see a Tyranid win with so many players of the race threatening to quit over the abundance of poisoned and auto-wound weapons.

Lol. My nids are one of those armies with an abundance of poisoned weapons. Actually, those "players threatening to quit" probably aren't playing Nids correctly. One of the biggest mistakes Tyranid players make is to play nids as a mainly assault army. That's a recipe for disaster. You just can't compete nowadays without shooting. A good balanced Tyranid list needs a good mix of both shooting as well as assault. The best tyranid armies have shooting, assault and a lot of T6 units. My list has 46 T6 wounds. Their are other 2K lists with even more!

Nice battle report, bad situation for te SoB as well. KP is the bane of immolator spam.

KP is the bane of all MSU-type spamming armies.

jy2 wrote:One of the things that is so tough about my army is that I can generate my own cover using my gaunts as a screen. Thus, whether there is terrain or not, it doesn't really affect me too much.

I thought with MC's the rulebook was pretty specific that half of the creature has to be obscured. I didn't think your gaunts could effectively give cover to your bigger bugs.

Thunderfrog wrote:

jy2 wrote:One of the things that is so tough about my army is that I can generate my own cover using my gaunts as a screen. Thus, whether there is terrain or not, it doesn't really affect me too much.

I thought with MC's the rulebook was pretty specific that half of the creature has to be obscured. I didn't think your gaunts could effectively give cover to your bigger bugs.

How it works is like this: tyrant guards give the hive tyrant cover by forming a unit with the hive tyrant. Because the tyrant guard is not a MC (it is just an infantry unit), it can still get cover from a screening unit. Because the hive tyrant is part of a unit, if 50% of the unit is in cover, then the tyrant will also benefit from the cover save. So the tyrant is not getting cover via obscurement by the tyrant guard. Instead, it is getting cover from the unit cover rules.

Then the tervigons hide behind either the tyrant or t-fex. Everything should now have cover from the front, and if you should kill my gaunts (basically the only unit without cover), my tervigon will just create another screen of gaunts and put them in front of my army again.

Didnt all that change with the new FAQ they released awhile back?

No.

Warhammer 5th Ed. FAQ

Nice report; maybe a lack of focus fire from the WH player... I don't know how to handle nids with such a list though.

Not completely sold on the nid list; 2*3 biovores seems a bit overkill; I would rather take a second tyrannofex (maybe go for 2-2-2 hive guards, 3 biovores and 2 tyranno).

Regarding Nids,you deployed the tyrant alone, wiith the guard running from the edge.
By reading the FAQ, I understood that you could not separe the tyrant from its guard, either during play or deployment.
Hence, I think that you could (and should) have deployed the tyrant with his guard, which form a single HQ unit.

I'm not quite sold on the tyrannofex yet. Thus, I don't invest in the points to get 2 of them. Biovores, on the other hand, are cheap as chips and is a good anti-infantry unit once my hive guards have de-embarked enemy units. Besides, I can easily swap out 3 biovores + t-fex for 2 trygons if I wanted to without changing the rest of my list.

What inspired me to start using biovores more was that 1 player in last year's 'Ard Boyz tourney made it all the way to the finals with a 9-biovore tyranid list. Very unconventional.

You are correct that once joined, the tyrant guard and hive tyrant cannot leave each other. However, they don't necessarily have to join together, and I believe that they still are 2 separate units insofar as DoW deployment (just like a dedicated transport is also a separate unit). It's stupid that you can't deploy your HQ in his dedicated transport (or with his supposed entourage in the case of the tyrant), but I prefer to go with the most restrictive intepretation in any instances where there is controversy.

My bad, i was still thinking according to the previous rules, where the Tyrant guards made a retinue for the tyrant.

Now that they're not necessarly associated to a tyrant, your interpretation seems to be the correct one.

Regarding biovores, the previous version could be taken x9, since it could kill vehicles, while the current one can't really (bye bye bio-acid).
I feel naked without T-fexes to kill vehicles (though i do not use as much hive guards, which probably compensate... i'm quite fond of ymgarls)

Nice battle report easy to read and follow plus good win

Arleucs wrote:My bad, i was still thinking according to the previous rules, where the Tyrant guards made a retinue for the tyrant.

Now that they're not necessarly associated to a tyrant, your interpretation seems to be the correct one.

Regarding biovores, the previous version could be taken x9, since it could kill vehicles, while the current one can't really (bye bye bio-acid).
I feel naked without T-fexes to kill vehicles (though i do not use as much hive guards, which probably compensate... i'm quite fond of ymgarls)

Yeah, that's why I won't ever be taking 9 biovores in regualr games. 6 is max for me, plus the t-fex. Though hive guards are much, much better at taking out the majority of the vehicles in 40k than the t-fex ever could, the t-fex is useful not just for its AT, but to give my other TMC's cover, as a counter-assault deterent and to soak up firepower.


@Billythekid256:

Thanks!

pzbw7z wrote:
There is a bit in this report that is just hilarious:

"He tries to regroup his fleeing celestian by making her fearless but fails!"

How did he roll less than one with two dice?

My opponent rolled a 12 and then told me he failed. As I am not an expert in his army, I took his word for it. Now, looking at the rules for witch hunters, it appears that he may have made a mistake, confusing the rules for Spirit of the Matyr with Divine Guidance.

jy2 wrote:

pzbw7z wrote:
There is a bit in this report that is just hilarious:

"He tries to regroup his fleeing celestian by making her fearless but fails!"

How did he roll less than one with two dice?

My opponent rolled a 12 and then told me he failed. As I am not an expert in his army, I took his word for it. Now, looking at the rules for witch hunters, it appears that he may have made a mistake, confusing the rules for Spirit of the Matyr with Divine Guidance.

That occurred to me, after I had posted. It's Light of the Emperor, but yeah, they are bit more complicated than they could be. In any case, it was certainly his responsibility.

In these cases, I usually just shrug and say, "she passed". Sometimes I roll the dice and ask - without looking - if it's more than one.

Back to the batrep, it's nicely done. Your friend has a nice looking army as well.

Haha, I just realized Light of the Emperor and Spirit of the Martyr doesn't fail when rolling box cars.

Anyways, great game jy2. It's always fun playing against you.

I look forward to a rematch.

SabrX wrote:Haha, I just realized Light of the Emperor and Spirit of the Martyr doesn't fail when rolling box cars.

Anyways, great game jy2. It's always fun playing against you.

I look forward to a rematch.

Yeah, thanks for the game.

The rematch may be against my Space Puppies next time.

For a preview of the type of army I'll be bringing, check out my batrep Christmas Day Massacre! 2500pts Space Wolves vs Imperial Mech Guards (Slideshow Report). It's a little different from my Space Wolves of old but IMO even nastier.

Awesome game. Seems like he had himself ripped a new one there. Did you consider moving the Hive Guards out of sight, as they can shoot through just everything?

Anyways, nice color schemes on both sides. I really enjoyed the orange armored ones - especially that black beast of your!

Billinator wrote:Awesome game. Seems like he had himself ripped a new one there. Did you consider moving the Hive Guards out of sight, as they can shoot through just everything?

Anyways, nice color schemes on both sides. I really enjoyed the orange armored ones - especially that black beast of your!

The way he deployed, there really was no terrain that my hive guards could hide behind and still have range to his tanks...with the exception of the bastion in the middle. But if I had hid them there, then he would have been able to get to my hive guards in 1-2 turns. Then all he had to do was melta them and then assault them, tying them up probably for the rest of the game. A hive guard in combat is useless...unless I'm doing it to contest an objective.

The black tyrant I got from ebay but haven't had the time to re-paint over it yet.

His tanks never moved out of the left side of the board?
From the pictures, it doesn't look like much movement happened. He just sat in the back left of the table, and shot at you. You moved up and shot at him. Occasionally a MC got to a tank?
Well photographed and described, great looking armies for both of you, but my pulse isn't exactly racing here.

Also, I really like the usage of the cardboard blister backing to represent the vehicle wreck.

Doomthumbs wrote:
Also, I really like the usage of the cardboard blister backing to represent the vehicle wreck.

I normally used 3" x 5" index cards, which is almost the exact size of a Rhino Chasis, but at the time, I didn't have any index cards on me. If you do decide to use index cards or cardboard blister pack, be warned there are a couple of rule lawyers out there, who will argue it has to be GW product such as a GW crater or GW wreckage. In which case, you decorate a GW cardboard blister pack with paint, sand, and bits making it 100% GW.

SabrX wrote:
I normally used 3" x 5" index cards, which is almost the exact size of a Rhino Chasis, but at the time, I didn't have any index cards on me. If you do decide to use index cards or cardboard blister pack, be warned there are a couple of rule lawyers out there, who will argue it has to be GW product such as a GW crater or GW wreckage. In which case, you decorate a GW cardboard blister pack with paint, sand, and bits making it 100% GW.

This is a great idea, I will need to make up some index card craters. I bet I would even find a nice pattern for it and throw it in a printer to make it look a little nicer.

SabrX wrote:Haha, I just realized Light of the Emperor and Spirit of the Martyr doesn't fail when rolling box cars.

Anyways, great game jy2. It's always fun playing against you.

I look forward to a rematch.

You sir, have a very damn good painted army.

I like it.

Autarch of Saim-Hann wrote:Congratulations on the win. Looks like your nids enjoyed their sisters buffet (om nom nom nom nom).

thats what she said?

grats BTW those are some nicely paints nids and SoB.

jy2 wrote:

freddieyu1 wrote:That is one nicely painted Sisters army!

This army belongs to SabrX, who also posts here on DakkaDakka. Everytime I see his army, it's looking more and more complete, though lately he's been busy with school.

congrats on the major victory! also, that's a very crisp looking paint job for the sisters and it works well. i like what he did also with the bubble canopy on the regular rhinos also. is that a FW model or just an SOB rhino kit used for that?