today being the release of the new tyranids codex my 'nid loving friend couldnt wait to start playing, he picked up his codex and we made army lists just before we set up the table. im not giving a detailed description of the gameboard we used but know at least we had about 5 armour 12 buildings and our 2 objective bastions (armour 14.) this is mostly a battle report but i give a few of my own opinions of new tyranids based on my experience today at the end of this post. i am by no means an expert warhammer player so be gentle if i make an error regarding a rule etc , i welcome people to fill in a lot of the details i am missing about the new tyranids actuall stats. this is my first battle report and i hope to give better organized ones that include pictures in the future. enjoy!
so we decided to play a spearhead objective game both of us had a fortified building in our deployment zone as objectives.
My list (the
CSM player) was as follows:
9 Obliterators
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CSM Sorcerer - Wings, Lash of Submission, plasma pistol
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10
csm emperors children- bolters / 2 plasma guns / asp. champ w/ power fist , icon of slaanesh
- In rhino w/ combi flamer
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5 Lesser demons
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5 Lesser demons
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9 khorne berzerkers
1 khorne
csm Lord w/ bloodfeeder
- In rhino w/ combi flamer
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my friends army list was (in much less detail because he didnt write anythign down and i'm mostly unfamiliar with tyranids codex
3 godfex's (beefed up
CC carnifexs)
swarm lord
2 zoenthropes
20 gaunts
20 gene stealers
turn 1:
So we started the game i won the roll off and went first. he made the fatal mistake of deploying his swarm lord infrot of his roided out carnifex's and in sight of all 9 devastating lascannon blasts from every obliterator. i had it down to 1 wound on turn one. i had one unit of obliterators inching towards his objective on the right flank while making sure they would be able to support home base if need be.. i had my lash camping on top of my objective bastion seeing as how he wasnt running any venom cannons!
on his turn he attempted shooting his zoenthropes psychic attacks but to my relief both attacks he was just out of range of the targeted rhino.
turn 2:
i was able to deep strike both units of lesser deamons and set up a meat screen infront of my bastion to slow the carnifexs.
i split up the rhinos to hoping to surround his unit.. yes unit.. of carnifexs b-lining it for my bastion objective. i invisioned surrounding them, shooting the crap out of them and knowingly sacrificing their lives in an assualt (to their respective gods) to slow them down. i had my sorcerer with the lash atop the bastion and he whipped the carnifexs 8" off to the left pretty much in to no mans land away from my objective and also away from his own (leaving that juicy right side open to advance towards his objective with a group of oblits and a rhino) i fired a hail of lascannon thunder at the carnifex trio and had mixed success. one squad missed across the board while another got em square between their bug eyes. 50% of 6 S9 shots hit, leaving one of his carni's with 1 wound in the end. i fired the third squad of oblits at his exposed zoeys with *gasp, suprise* lascannons and NAILED them with all 3 leaving one TOAST and the other wimpering with 1 wound left.
(at this point He had one of the units of gene stealers in his objective building.) He brought out his unit of infiltrated gene stealers from a building somewhat near my objective. He then deep striked a spore drop pod thingy and out popped his 20 gaunts right in 3 of my obliterators faces. what a terrible mistake. .he used the suprise-attackign stealers to amazingly go after my unit of 5 lesser deamons instead of my susceptable rhino w/ the berzerkers caught clearly in assault distance .... he wiped out the lesser deamons and consolidated closer to my objective. his carnifexs then attacked the berzerkers rhino even more to my amazement. he blew it up and the berzerkers and lord popped out.
turn 3
i twin link flamered the hell out of 17 of the gaunts in to a fine bug creme patte and failed their leadership test, the three left behind moved a little closer to my objective (about 12" away) . his spore pod attacked the 3 oblits it popped up infront of and i suffered one casualty there. I was then able to shoot down 1 zoenthrope with one of the other oblit squads and leave one of them with 1 wound. i had range for the lash on the stealers near my objective passed the psychic test (awsome on a
ld of 10) i lashed his stealers back towards my berzerkers. i then used 3 oblits on top of my bastion to plasma cannon his gene stealers down to 4 from 10 with no "gets hot" results. then in the assualt phase the bloodthirsty berzerkers were found to be in range of the lashed stealers, and they assaulted with deathly fury. His 3 carnifex's piled in. in the ensuing battle my bloodfeeder weilding khorne lord got 10 extra attacks (
yay!) 5 berzerkers were in base contact with the stealers and the rest including the lord were attacking the fex's. his stealers barely made a scratch on my berzerkers (my opponent was getting awful rolls from the beginning) and i got him back with a few attacks killing one stealer. i then rained more dice on the table and the few wounds that were dealt were enough to kill one carnifex! (MORE SKULLS!
) his fex's answered back by slicing and dicing their way down to only the lord. one zerker and the lord remained - thankfully locking both his precious units in combat for his turn! i used my other oblits to try and reduce his bastion objective to rubble but as it turned out the mighty lascannons couldnt penatrate.
He wasnt too pleased with the results he had gotten so far, i found he was lacking in the fact that he couldnt stop my shooting. probably a venom cannon or something of the sort would have done him a world of good on my oblits and sorcerer lasher. also he wasnt playing with a trygon or whatever the new huge thing is, i was able to take out his swarm lord from a deployment mistake on his part, and he really really should have opted to deep strike pretty much all his units (those fexs that walked across the board). (incase you're wondering what im talking about here, basically every unit in tyranids can now deep strike for a certain points value its much more detailed and complicated than that but i dont remember the details)
turn 4
i advanced my rhino of the emperors children towards his objective trying to block a possible assault path from his stealers to my oblits. i was locked in combat everywhere else except the sorcerer and oblits on my bastion so the next thing was shooting. the spore pod then proceeded to deal me another blow which i failed the oblits 5+ invulnerable and took another casualty. (ouch). my 1 remaining obliterator vs the 3 gaunts who made it back in to combat failed miserably with its power fists to really do anything effective and still remained tied up in combat.
on his turn we pretty much went straight to the assault phase when he burst from his objective holding stealers and assaulted my obliterators that i failed to protect with a rhino. they wiped the obliterators clear off the board but i was still happy the objective was now open. strangely he consolidated to inside an armour 12 building that was situated half way between my objective and his. the stealers and fexs obviously dealt quickly with the lord and bezerker and began to march towards my objective, both units within 9-12 inches. i began to worry at this point that maybe i wasnt actually able to stop his fex's and stealers in time from coming and opening up my bastion like a tin can with rending and
2D6 penatrating before the game ended in turns
turn 5
i moved the emperors children in the rhino up to his objective thus controlling it. i know my friend made a lot of mistakes in this game but trust me he is usally really really good at unit placement on the battlefield! anyway i proceeded to lash his carnifexs 11"
backwards away from my objective! i shot at the stealers with twin linked meltaguns and made them in to a bug paste. then i assaulted his 1 stealer blocking the path to my objective with 5 meat bag lesser deamons. i now controlled both objectives clearly and he would only be able to contest one of them on the next turn so he conceded defeat though mumbling something about probably winning on the next turn..
either way it was a really fun game for me because he used to spank me with his old codex for some reason. key notes on why this game particullarly went in my favour are to give credit to the lash of submission, and all the firepower from fielding 9 lascannon toting obliterators. weaknesses on his part were lack of dealing with my long range shooting, which he admitted he should have deep striked his
MC's in my face instead of taking heavy casuallties early on by footslogging.. (fatal fatal error) his poison attacks didnt really affect me because i hardly got in to any
CC because i kept my rhinos in a location that would have pulled him away from his intended targets and was therefor able to keep firing and firing from all angles with heavy weapons (melta guns, lascannons) overall i would be scared to run a non mechanized army against the new tyranids as i know the next time we meet he will be deep striking right up my arse with
MC's and loads of poison bearing bugs, and probably will run at least one type of long range anti shooty weapon. the venom cannon although it wont ever penatrate still forces me to take demonic possesion for extra points to make sure my rhinos arent stopped in their tracks every turn or eventually destroyed by accumulated damage. in an ideal new tyranid players army, nowhere on the battlefield should be safe from the unstoppable power of the hive!
