Regular Dakkanaut
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With all the Nid batreps going around, I thought I'd share my latest experience with them. I've been toying around with a couple of lists, but this is the one that I enjoy the most. Has some basic nid shooting to get people out of transports and such with the zoey's and hive guard, but for the most part just tries to run across the board and consume biomass.
HQ:
Swarmlord
1 Tyrant Guard - Lash whip
Elites:
3 Zoanthropes
3 Hive Guard
2 Venomthropes
Troops:
10 Termagaunts
Tervigon - Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
8 Stealers - Toxin Sacs
8 Stealers - Toxin Sacs
7 Stealers
Heavy Support:
Trygon
Trygon
Trygon
I played against a new blood angels list. Theory of his list was some basic scoring units that lend a bit of fire support with the meat being two terminator squads that have furious charge + fnp from sanguinary priests... then reroll to hit from a chaplain (reclusiarch) or a librarian. Those guys ride around in their redeemers looking for trouble.
HQ:
Reclusiarch Chappy - Infernus pistol
Librarian - Preferred Enemy & S10 powers, Infernus pistol?
Elites:
5 Terminators - 4 TH/SS, 1 LC
Land Raider Redeemer - Multi-melta, extra armor
5 Terminators - 3 TH/SS, 2 LC
Land Raider Redeemer - Multi-melta, extra armor
3 Sanguinary Priests (1 with assault squad, others with the terminator squads)
Troops:
10 Tactical Marines - Melta gun, Lascannon
Rhino
10 Tactical Marines - Melta gun, Lascannon
Rhino
5 Assault Marines - Melta gun, PFist
Razorback
Not exactly sure on all the upgrades and such, but that's about right.
Since we're both still in the testing phase of our armies, decide to play a standard mission instead of one of the new battle missions (some of those things can be really odd). We roll and get Seize Ground, with 4 objectives.
Directions are based off of the board as I looked at it once we figured out where DZ's were.
He places the first near the center of the board. I put the next about 12" north of the first, which was barely >12" from the north board edge. He places the third halfway between the one I placed and the east short board edge. The last one went in the bottom left corner away from all of the others.
Deployment was then rolled, and we got Spearhead. He wins the roll for 1st and takes it so that he could pick the deployment zone with 2 objectives in it (top right corner). The third was in the center no man's land but still slightly closer to his DZ than mine, and the fourth was fully in mine. He didn't want to go first in an objective game, but more than that didn't want me to have two objectives in my DZ to him just having one.
He combat squads the two tact's, putting the two 5 man squads with a las each in the back in terrain standing around the right-most objective. The melta+srg halves go in their rhinos in the top-center of the DZ. The assault squad with a priest in their razor also deploy up there.
The two redeemers with the terminators (chappy joins the 2 LC squad, libby with 1 LC terms) deploy basically front and center. Libby LR is closer to the rhinos/razor, the chappy LR is the east-most vehicle, but still on the starting line. Only the terminators with the chaplain get the 1 on a red thirst, making the already fearless squad from chappy fully fearless.. Also gave them FC, but they already had that from the priest, too..
I respond with my deployment by outflanking the 7 stealers without toxin sacs to make an end-run towards his back objective. I deploy the gaunts + tervigon on the north-most point in my DZ (gaunts in front) close to his rhinos and razorback. Hive guard are just behind them hiding behind some terrain. Zoey's are as close to the LR's as possible, putting them effectively right in front of the hive guard. Then on the right-most section of my DZ (12" down from center point), is the swarmlord with a tyrant guard in terrain. Trygons are hanging out by the swarmlord with the venomthropes there to give them 5+ cover. Genestealers with toxin sacs are just behind the main line for counter attacks.
I don't try to seize and the game starts.
Turn 1:
He moves his LR's 6" forward, attempting to screen the one with the libby with a rhino. Shooting from the LR's, Razorback, and two las cannons sees a single wound on the thropes, 2 wounds on the tervigon, 2 wounds on the swarmlord. Very good shooting, considering everything had cover saves.
In response, the zoey's moved up and got within 18" of the libby's LR, also able to get on top of the terrain the hive guard were hiding behind (able to see completely past the rhino in front of the LR now). Big bugs advanced, the swarmlord making sure to keep his tyrant guard in cover. Venomthropes moved to stay close to trygons, too. Genestealers still lurking behind for a counter charge.
Tervigon gave the Zoey's FNP, and spit out 14 gaunts without doubles. The gaunts all moved up to clog his movement lines barring a tank shock.
Shooting saw the Zoey's get past the psychic hood and pop the libby LR, with them failing a pinning check to get locked in place. The hive guard shot down the razorback.
Turn 2:
He can't afford to assault yet, since only one of his terminator squads would be able to charge (even if the libby terminators weren't pinned, wouldn't have had 12" to anything anyway.. and they would have been going through terrain to boot). He backs his chappy LR up a bit out of Zoey range and shoots. Shooting sees the swarmlord take his 3rd wound, and his tyrant guard take his first.
Genestealers fail to come in from outflank.
I've got two trygons in potential charge range of his libby terminator unit, and they both go for it (will be going through terrain). Zoeys get FNP again (wanted to give it to swarmlord, but was out of range - poor placement on my part). Zoeys move towards the chappy LR but don't get in range. Swarmlord hangs in cover, content to be fire magnet for the LR and las cannons.
Continue to advance trygons with stealers behind them. Tervigon doesn't spawn more gaunts this turn.
Shooting sees the hive guard open up on the assault squad, since the rhinos are hiding up against terrain and would have a cover save - plus they're hanging back some so aren't a threat at this point. He fails 2 armor saves and doesn't get FNP since they're S8 shots. The 10 gaunts that started on the board + 14 that were spawned open up with flesh borers and manage to kill the priest + 1 more guy (just PFist + melta left). Lucky, getting that priest out.
My two closest trygons get decent fleets, leaving one ~2" out and the other ~4" out. The 4" one fails to make it through the terrain to charge, but the other one gets in. He casts preffered enemy power with his librarian.
Librarian fails to wound, the sang priest causes 1, and the 2 LC terminators get another wound. In response, the trygon puts 1 attack on the sang priest, 3 on the librarian, and 3 on the terminators. He ends up killing the priest and librarian (neither had invul saves), and causing 2 wounds to the terminators. Kills 1 of the TH/SS guys. The remaining two TH/SS guys all hit with the rerolls, and all wound to just kill the Trygon. Worthwhile, though I would have loved to get the second trygon in there, too. The terminators massacre forward towards my line.
Turn 3:
He elects to move the chappy LR up only 6" so that he can shoot the TL-AC + MM at the swarmlord (and also not block sight to him from the las cannon tact squads in the back). This, though, leaves the terminator squad about 4-5" away from the trygon they want to charge (the one that failed to charge the libby terminators, who is in terrain).
Shooting does manage to kill off both the tyrant guard + swarmlord (awww). Crucially, though, he fails his terrain check to assault the trygon with the chaplain terminators. The other terminators (formerly librarian ones, now sans libby) multicharge the zoanthropes + venomthropes. They pass their dangerous terrain checks. I do manage to kill one of the LC terminators, but after combat res lose the venomthropes + one zoey, the last two zoey's stay locked.
On my turn, the trygon moves out of cover ready to hit terminators, supported by 8 genestealers with toxin sacs. Other 8 genestealers stumble on terrain moving only 2". Third trygon moves to counter charge terminators locked with the zoey's, in addition to the 14 gaunts spawned on turn 1.
Tervigon spits out another 13 still with no doubles. The original 10 move up to deal with the last two guys from the assault squad. New 13 plus tervigon start pushing towards center objective.
Shooting sees the hive guard wreck a rhino with tact squad inside, they pass pinning. These guys are behind the two assault squad guys. Assault squad guys lose 1 to shooting from the 10 gaunts, then the other dies to the gaunts charging.
The 14 gaunts that charged in with the trygon to the zoey/terminator kill all 3 terminators before the trygon can even swing, keeping both zoey's alive. Furious charge with poisoned attacks meant 4's to hit and rerolling 4's to wound - I also rolled above average, causing 15 wounds, heh.
The last combat of the round saw the trygon + genestealers kill the three TH/SS terminators (both IC's were surrounded by the LR / squad, so neither were involved in the first round). The LC guys survived, killing 2 stealers. He passed his no retreat save.
Turn 4:
Not much for him to do. The tact squad that lost their rhino moved up and shot/charged the 10 gaunts (well, down to 8 after the PFist killed 2 in combat last turn) off the board. Las cannons put two wounds on the tervigon, down to 2 left. Redeemer moves 12" towards my objective to try for a hail mary contest, popping smoke.
In combat, the priest dies, as do both LC terminators to trygon + genestealers. Chappy survives, getting the stealers down to 4. The unhurt trygon + 4 stealers pile in on him.
Outflanking stealers arrive, and get the proper side. They move but only run 1", so are way out of charge range (he was around 14-15" off the board edge and in terrain).
The third trygon who went to help zoey's moves + runs to get a charge on the LR. Zoeys move to get sight to both the LR + last rhino. Tervigon gives FNP to the 14 gaunts that move towards last rhino, too. The 13 man squad moves towards the tactical guys that killed the previous one. Spawn 10 more, getting doubles this time. They also move towards tactical guys up top.
Shooting sees the two gaunt squads (13 man + newly created 10) kill tactical marines down to 3 guys, then charge in and kill the remaining in combat. Hive guard fail to pop the last rhino, but the zoeys get it. The 14 gaunts with FNP shoot in, then charge, killing all of those, too.
Trygon charges LR, immobilizing it.
Other trygon + 4 stealers kill the chaplain. Both massacre towards his last guys.
Turn 5:
He only has the two remaining tactical combat squads + immobilized LR in contact with a trygon. They finish off the last two wounds of the tervigon with the las cannons (killing a few gaunts, but not enough for any LD checks), and one of the two zoeys with the redeemer.
Trygon touching his LR finishes it off with 6 automatic hits.
The two combat squads get charged - one by the 7 genestealers and another by a trygon. Trygon wipes out one squad by himself, the other get killed down to 2 guys who fail their check, get caught, but pass no retreat saves.
Roll for the game: it ends, 3 objectives to 0.
Overall, everything in the army did what it was supposed to do. I had a few above average rolls, but mostly it was pretty average. I can say I didn't have any bouts of bad rolling, though, which was useful. So a unit analysis...
Swarmlord: Was just a fire magnet in this game, he didn't really get to do anything (except absorb a lot of firepower - more than it seems considering how awesome my opponent rolled to hit and wound). His potential is huge, though. In other games he's been amazing. Last game I played he broke a nob biker squad by himself.
Hive Guard: Wrecked some light transports, plus killed a few FNP marines by denying the extra save being S8. Very much did the job they were meant for. Plus no danger of a psychic hood blocking them.
Zoeys: Man, they decimate LR's now, it was shocking how easily they destroyed it. Now granted, I got a bit lucky that my opponent's psychic hood failed to block any of them because he rolled low (on average, a LD10 psychic hood should block LD10 powers ~42% of the time), but their threat potential is huge. Then after they destroyed the LR, they absorbed some terminator attacks with their invul, allowing other stuff to counter charge the enemy unit off the board. Need to see how they work against runes of warding and space wolves, but overall keepers in my opinion.
Trygons: They fight so hard. They catch many people by surprise, too. It's not that abnormal to cause 5 wounds against the enemy even when they get charged. Rerolling 3's followed by 2's against things WS<=4 T<=4 is awesome. Plus fleet. All around great units.
Venomthropes: I wish these guys weren't elite slots. They help a lot, but the elite slot in the nid book is filled with such great units. I probably wouldn't field these guys, despite how useful they can be with the defensive grenades / dangerous terrain / cover saves for nearby units, except that they're almost required to get a trygon cover (who are the meat of this list).
Tervigon: He did more than he should have this game, to be honest. Around 40% chance to roll doubles with the gaunt spawning, and he got off 3 rolls. and high rolls at that.. But he showed his potential. My opponent said he felt embarrassed that his blood angels were getting charged off the board by gaunts, heh. Now at the time, he didn't have the FNP anymore and they were hitting weakened squads, but he just didn't have the bodies to deal with them. Poisoned furious charging gaunts can actually do a lot of damage. Plus the tervigon giving things FNP (like zoeys) is very useful. Can't imagine not having at least one tervigon in every list, especially as a troop choice so that in addition to everything else, you've got a T6 6W scoring monster.
Genestealers: They're still stealers, poisoned 4+ makes them super nasty getting to reroll their rending wounds.. the 5+ save with no way to upgrade typically isn't that big of a deal to shooting, since they can get cover behind big things, with one notable exception: they really don't like flamers. Even regular flamers now kill outright.
Where the 5+ hurts the most is in combat, especially if they're charging into cover. Still, they're cheaper than they were, so I think they're still worth it... especially since they can fight well without needing the tervigon to be within 6" like the gaunts.
Amusingly, 40kenthusiast and myself compared our two nid armies and noticed that we don't have a single unit in common. We were both pleased with that fact.
Overall, I've been happy with the list so far - though I can't beat mech/gunline IG that go first. I played it once so far and got shot off the board something fierce. It didn't help that the zoey's failed the first five saves they took, and I made about only about 1/6 of my 5+ venomthrope cover saves that game, but it wouldn't have mattered... it wasn't even close. I'm interested in trying out a similar game but going first. That way I can FNP the zoeys, plus get a head start across the board before they start shooting. Not sure if it would help, though.
Also going to try and get some games against SW's to see how it does against them. Interested in getting some experience with the nids against shooty marines w/ counter assaults as opposed to fighting marines.
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.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
Thousand Sons 4000+
