Alright, my final pre-release batrep for nids, and this one was a barn burner. I wanted to make sure I faced the single unit I feared most before I finalized my first version of my list. If you don't know off-hand what the nastiest anti-nid unit is, you will after this batrep.
Somnicide was my opponent, he piloted a tweaked version of a space marine list that we co-wrote. He is a space marine player, and a good one... so i didn't have to worry too much about him sandbagging. After my first two mono-dimensional lists, I took my favorite elements from each and built a 1750 with some synergy. It's pretty close to finalized, I really like it...
Here are the lists...
NIDS
hive tyrant scything talons, heavy venom cannon, adrenal glands, paroxysm, psychic scream, ancient enemy
2x tyrant guard with scything talons and rending claws
2x hive guard
2x hive guard
2x hive guard
10x termagants
10x termagants
tervigon with crushing claws, catalyst, adrenal glands, toxin sacs
tervigon with crushing claws, catalyst, adrenal glands, toxin sacs
10x genestealers with toxin sacs
mawloc with adrenal glands
carnifex with heavy venom cannon, scything talons, adrenal glands and frag grenades
MARINES
librarian with null zone and avenger
ironclad with heavy flamer in drop pod
ironclad with heavy flamer in drop pod
7x terminators in land raider crusader
10x tactical marines with missile launcher and flamer in a rhino
10x tactical marines with missile launcher and flamer in a rhino
thunderfire cannon in drop pod with deathwind launcher
thunderfire cannon in drop pod with deathwind launcher
Ok, you know the drill by now, 5 objective seize ground pitched battle. I won the roll to go first, and since I wanted to get catalyst off before his shooting phase, I took first turn and the better side... this was my deployment (sorry for the proxies)
On my left flank I have a unit of termagants spread in one rank as wide as i could go. In the gaps between them those warriors are representing hive guard. I have two units of two. The first mistake is that the farthest one out there is out of synapse.
Here is my center and my right flank. The hive tyrant is the empty 60mm base, and the two tervigons are the empty valkyrie bases. I've got the tyrant guard getting cover, which gets the whole unit cover, and the tervigon behind the hive tyrant is hoping to get some cover from certain angles via the hive tyrant model. The carnifex is not going to be getting cover, but will be my primary target for catalyst and he will be hopefully providing cover for the tervigon behind it. That painted valk base in the back represents the mawloc. I am deploying him on table within synapse so that I can use his reburrow on turn 1. Guaranteeing a turn 2 arrival.
Somnicide deployed like this...
Both combat squadded units found cover, the land raider was as close to table center as possible and the thunderfires deployed into the extreme corners of either side. in reserve went two deathwind pods empty and two ironclads in pods.
Ok top of turn 1. Nids surge forward. I am just barely starting to et a feel for how the gant farm plays. Next game I'll be even better, but the basic concept is to move up as far as you can, keep tank shock screens in place to protect the tervigons, and try to shoot. One of the drags I discovered when reading the english copy of the codex at my
FLGS is that every single nids psychic power except the broodlord powers is a psychic shooting attack. Yes, even catalyst. It is a shooting attack that automatically hits a friendly unit. That means, no running pretty much, ever with the tervigons and hive tyrants. it also makes paroxysm a LOT more tricky to get off. Conversely, the termagants that show up off of the tervigon can move run and assault the turn they arrive, and they can arrive up to 6" away from him, so they can reach out and touch someone FAST. I shot very poorly, only managing to kill one memeber of the combat squad in the building and crew stunning the rhino on my left flank. I made one real small unit of termagants and one average sized one, and didn't get doubles on either. I got off two catalysts through the psychic hood, one on carnifex and one on the hive tyrant.
Left flank
Right flank
Bottom of turn 1. After talking everything over, Som decided to call for his deathwind pods. Ultimately it is a judgement call whether or not he should have brought the ironclads down or not. As it stood after one movement phase, the land raider couldn't tank shock and disembark because all of the doors would be blocked. So he felt like he wanted to have time to thin out some gants before he made his big thrust (thats what she said). His shooting killed about 11 gants. Which was not nearly enough. I think his missiles were pointed at the carnifex and caused a wound. His first drop pod was set to land on an objective but scattered off of it. So rather than pace the other pod somewhere else he had to use it to block that same objective, this ended up having two drop pods on my extreme left flank.
Top of 2. Move gants up, trying and failing not to slow play. I push my luck with the hive guard unit on the left flank, and pass instinctive on them so i can shoot at a further back rhino that som has exposed. I make a massive 14 man gant unit on my left tervigon which exhausts it. I made an 11 man gant unit with the other tervie and he's still going strong! Good day for tervigons. Again, sorry for the proxies in this next pic. If it isn't painted and on a 25mm base, its a termagant. MAN you need a lot of these models and a really good way of making them distinctive. The mawloc pops up under the unit in the crater, hitting 3 and killing 2. They pass their first morale test and try to figure out what to do with this giant monster in their lines. Other than that arrival my shooting was terible, both
HVC scattered off target and the hive guard could not touch the drop pods or that fresh rhino.
Bottom of 2. Som's target priority just got very difficult. he is seeing that the gant screen is going to keep his land raider out of the game for too long, so he changed his strategy a bit and just threw serious heat on the gants. Only one ironclad arrived, it debarked and laid out a heavy flamer, and his thunderfires went to work, alongside a full salvo from the
LRC. I lost over 20 gants here. More than I made that turn for sure. Screening the terminators was going to be next to impossible next turn. And the ironclads pod was now blocking an objective. He tried to pick at the mawloc with what he could, but both his missiles failed to hit or wound, and his bolters pattered off his hide.
Top of 3. I could tell that on the bottom of 3 I was going to take a combination charge from the ironclad and the terms unless I could get lucky with venom cannon. I did my best to screen the lead tervigon with a new batch of 14! But that was the last new batch I'd make. I had two other termagant units converge and do their absolute best to block every exit to a tank shocking land raider. I shot my carnifex venom cannon at an approaching rhino and destroyed it. The hive tyrant decided to fling a paroxysm on the ironclad rather than shoot the venom cannon. One tervigon was going to charge a a drop pod and so couldn't catalyst anyone (remember, it a psychic shooting attack) The other didn't have anyone to really catalyst so he just ran instead, trying in vain to hide from thunder hammer death. by the time my move was done, if you walked by our table you would think I was completely dominating the marines, and I was, but I'm good enough at
40k to see what was likely about to happen if Som rolled average results. To make things worse, the slow tyrant guard/hive tyrant unit failed to roll high eneough difficult terrain to pre-emptively charge the WS1 ironclad. In other news my out of synapse hive guard unit finally went instinctive and retreated to the forest, popping off its shots at the nearby drop pod, weapon destroying it, the other hive guard unit killed the drop pod blocking my leftmost objective. In
CC the tervigon rolled well on his crushing claws and punched the drop pod to shreds, it exploded but failed to hurt any of the tough nids around it. The mawloc charged and ran off a combat squad.
Bottom of 3. The convocation of space marine planning. In that gap between the two gant strings, there was a spot to debark if he guessed his tank shock distance right. Don't expect Som not to guess his distances, he played
IG when you had to guess your basilisk distances, haha. The tank shock/debark goes off without a hitch, sealing the fate of my tervigon and three of my gant units. The lucky ironclad ends around against the hive tyrants unit and charges the hive guard on the other side of the pod. the other ironclad arrives and essentially takes the place of the orginal ironclad, lending his flamer to the gant cleanup operation. The gant cleanup operation was almost total. The thunderfires were mean this whole game, ignoring my cover saves and picking up my gants in droves. the combat squad in rhino and the second ironclad added flamer, and the land raiders assault cannon was pressed into service as well. The center tervigon squeeled, releasing its stress pheromone as the terminators charged it.
BOOM! I lose the tervigon and the remainging gants from 3 of 4 units, fortunately I have the other tervigon, the genestealers and 9 surviving gants in the other unit. But, the space marines were RIGHT back in the game. Next turn will answer the question... Can I beat 7 THSS termies?
Top of 4. Ok, well... Som has "whipped it out". All his threats are on table, and close. Its basically going to come down to bloody knuckles in the mid table. I need every possible resource going into this fight, so objectives are not a concern for now. I set up the carnifex, the surviving tervigon, my gant unit and my hive tyrant and two guard into charge the termies formation. My hive guard on the left flank gets two penetrating hits on the ironclad! But as there was a tree between them, and the ironclad was 'toching' the forest. He got cover, and made BOTH! The other hive guard unit finally gets in range to the thunderfire cannon and passes synapse, they kill the gun, leaving the surviving techmarine angry. The genestealers finally show up on the other flank and trash the thunderfire before getting a good consolidate. The hated thunderfires are dead, but they had easily already accomplished what they needed to do.
Ok, so Som's hood is 0 for 5. The only psychic power that is going to matter is incoming. I pass parxysm and then roll a 2 for the hood check. Come on 0 for 6! Nope, the hood is 1 for 6, and it stopped a VITAL power. Everyone charges, and through 'masterful' assaulting, I manged to engage every one of his 6 surviving terminators, meaning that only one could attack the fex, only one could attack the hive tyrant and only one could attack the tervigon. The furious charging, poisoned, preferred enemy termagants caused 11 wounds out of 9 models... pretty impressive yeah? The hive tyrant and guard went off as well. All in all, I handed him twelve 3+ saves and seventeen 2+ saves over that charge. Som decided to be a dick and only lost 4 terminators. Haha, the game was SOOOO on at that point.
Bottom of 4. Som has one mobile rhino with a combat squad left alive, and I have the tervigon, 6 gants and a full genestealer unit. However, the tervies and the gants are about to be locked up in a dangerous
CC, and the genestealers can be blocked by the land raider, and his rhino had slipped completely away from the fight. And was way far away from the action near an objective. Som spent some time deciding whether or not he should join the combat in the center with one or both ironclads, and what he should do about the mawloc and the hive guard. he decided to hedge and charge the mawloc with one ironclad and charge into the scrum with the other. My new problem is how hard are ironclads to kill in
cc. HARD. My hive guard shoot at the land raider and do nothing, the other hive guard unit takes some shooting from the rhino on the other flank and decide to hoof it. My right flank has officially collapsed. In the ensuing
CC the hive tyrant and guard and termagants shred the remaining two terminators before they swing. The tervigon gets another good crushing claw roll and is still preferred enemy from the hive tyrant, and gets two pens on the ironclad, but i get a crew shaken and a stunned. I take two wounds for my trouble on the tervigon. the only good news to come from this is that when attempting to consolidate towards the ironclad, the carnifex was unable to reach him, and was therefore free to consolidate and help out his mawloc friend on the next turn.
Top of 5. Potential last turn, and I am stuck on this damn ironclad! The carnifex lines up against the ironclad that has charge my mawloc, and my genestealers move to surround the objective. The hive guard take one more shot on the land raider to no avail, In assault the carnifex soccer kicks the ironclad across the field, shattering him into a million pieces, but the hive tyrant and tervigon keep coming up short. With preferred enemy in place and with the crushing claws, I was getting lots of hits, and a decent amount of penetrates, but vehicles just aren't easy to finally kill off, I immobilized it, but it managed to put two more wounds on the tervigon.
Bottom of 5. If I can't kill this ironclad in table center, and the game ends, I'm about to lose 0-1. The land raider tank shock blocks the genestealer objective. Shoots some stealers, and then we are right back to the assault phase. The tervigon never finds out how many crushing claws he gets because he gets killed off by that blasted ironclad. I was fortunate enough to survive the explosion with 2 of my termagants, and the hive tyrant still can't kill the damn thing. Please don't end... please don't end... it doesn't end!
Top of 6. I realize that the mawloc sucks.So now I think, oh its no big deal, I'll just reburrow so that I can pop up under the scoring rhino. Uh oh, you can't deep strike on any turn that you re-burrow, so if I reburrow this turn, then i have to hope there is a turn 7, and then I have to hope that I don't scatter off of the objective. Forget it, I decided to help the carnifex on the land raider. In the assault phase my hive tyrant FAILS to kill the ironclad again, and the ironclad swings at termagants, I laugh as he is only able to kill one of the two, and we get another drawn combat. Looks like that ironclad is going to win Som the game. But wait1 Here comes the carnifex, he charges gets a single 6, which results in a pen. I had been rolling so lousy with my vehicle damage chart rolls that I went to the shelf and got a brand new never been rolled die, and threw it as hard as i could. 5 was the result. the mawloc was unneeded, the land raider was dead, and the genestealers were now scoring.
If there is a turn 7, the hive tyrant has one more chance to kill the ironclad, if he does, my lone gant can consolidate onto the center objective to give me the win.
But that wasn't my destiny. The game ended on turn 6, and we were tied 1-1. We didn't count it up, but at a glance I had a substantial lead on victory points. Not that we need a tie breaker for a test game
Ok, I have a ton of thoughts on both nids and space marines after that great donnybrook!
First, space marines... that list played exactly like it was designed to. Cleared out the tarpits admirably, and had 4 ridiculously hard elements. Early shooting from the thunderfires is all you need, throw a couple missiles out there, and then make people get hung up trying to kill terminators and ironclads for the rest of the game while your rhinos work around the flanks. Of course it is particularly nasty against armies like nids that don't have lots of meltaguns. My version of the list has a unit of two attack bikes with multi-meltas hiding behind the land raider, at a cost of no deathwind launchers and one less terminator.
Ok, now onto the nids... lets go unit by unit...
Hive tyrant. I know a lot of people are concerned about the cost. Unless you aren't running tervigons, take him. I'm not kidding. I definitely overspent on tyrant guard, and will only be running a single for a while now, but having a venom cannon in the opening turns, then having paroxysm which is absolutely devastating is pretty good. Having a large model that can game cover from even a termagant (with attached tyrant guard of course) gives you more cover for carnifexes. And his preferred enemy was outstanding. When you are running tervigons with carnifex support, you NEED re-rolls. you are WS3 with high quality attacks, and you need to win combats fast. I re-rolled so many attacks in that terminator fight. I would probably have just lost the game on turn 4 without it. I'm being careful toa void hyperbole here. Just take him if you are running a gant farm.
tyrant guard. Really just extra wounds, with half decent
CC, but nothing special for their points. I'll take one so that the hive tyrant has a 4+ cover save for a turn or two, but taking more is becoming unexciting.
hive guard. In this list they weren't particularly exciting, but they would be so pivotal versus vendettas that it isn't even funny. I'd never take more than 6, but unless I had at leaset two units of zoanthropes, I would never leave home without 6.
genestealers. When furiously waiting for them to arrive to kill the thunderfire cannons I cursed that I didn't split the unit into two units of 5. I might still do that so that they'll show up faster. If you read the report it should be painfully obvious that you need a troop choice that isn't a termagant. You need to envelop, and you cn't just have 1750 in a phalanx box, you'll get shot to pieces and outmaneuvered. If I took hive commander on my tyrant, I might be tempted to switch these to hormagaunts, but I like that genestealers can threaten transports.
tervigons. Well, this is the heart of this list archetype. If i didn't like the unit, I should be playing a hormagaunt spamming version instead. For instance, if I cut both tervigons and both termagant units I could be running 67 poisoned hormagaunts. Although the simplicity of that choice is definitely alluring, I think the mnstrous creature troop, giving off feel no pain, can be made to be better than just simple horma screens. A note on crushing claws. I credit Manimal with this tech. I had given up on claws on all units when I did the math on dual scything talons. But since tervigons don't have access to a second scytal, they actually become quite good. The synergy with preferred enemy is there, and I LOVED crushing claws this game. It pushes the tervigon over the edge into a good
CC unit. Not just a 200 point buff-bot.
termagants. Like I said in the batrep. 9 termagants did 11 wounds to terminators. Take a 5 point model, give it preferred enemy, furious charge, poison, and counter-attack. If Som didn't have thunderfire cannons, I would have been able to charge his terminators with 30+ of these guys. If 9 models deals 11 wounds, 30 would mean a pretty much dead unit. That would have freed my
MCs up to use psychic powers, shoot venom cannons or charge other units. The termagant makes the tervigon battery work. If I had spare points, I'd inflate the orginal ten mans even more, a couple good run rolls in the early turns and they can tie up enemy shooting units, until you can get the tervigon in range. And then they hulk out.
Carnifex. Well, in theoryhammer you should know that being strength 10 on the charge is a significant increase in effectiveness. Well, in practice, this beast killed a land raider and an ironclad on the charge and killed a rhino with his
HVC. Is he costed more than he was in 4th? Obviously yes, is he required kit for a gant farm army that doesn't want to gamble on the ultra fragile zoanthropes? Yes... Did som wish he had been throwing missiles at it all game, even though I would have had
FNP? Yep. This one goes right into the catagory of the hive tyrant. There are more flashy units to catch your eye. But a catalysted carnifex is a boon to your game plan for sure.
mawloc. Sorry guys... its just crap. The re-burrow turns him intoa stength 6 large blast that shoots every other turn? I'll take a pass thanks. And if you are just going to arrive and then start charging things, why not double your attacks, double your weapon skill, get rerolls on all of your attacks and fleet for 30 points? This was the case where the mawloc was supposed to be slightly better, point for point than the trygon. He just wasn't...
Ok, here are some things I would have done differently. I would have been way more aggressive with the tervigons. I'm thinking of just running them as front line units, giving themselves
FNP and just bum-rushing. The 6" birth distance, followed by a move and charge same tun means that you can tie down units really fast. The carnifex is a counter assault element, and has a venom cannon, he doesn't need to be frontline, same with the hive tyrant, although the hive tyrant does want to get that preferred enemy up there at some point. I'll be dropping one tyrant guard to upgrade mawloc to a trygon, and with the thirty left over points i will either split the genestealers into two units and two stealers (I can drop the frags on the carnifex easily enough to afford that) or I'll think about a unit of spore mines. Although I don't think spore mines get good until you spend 60 points on them.
I'm sure I'll think of more to discuss, after some replies... What did you guys think?
38/15/4
their burning of xeno's will be remembered! 
(Friend bought them back for me, making them work, statement so far half stands after a lesson learnt)
SKAVEN 
