Longtime Dakkanaut
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I pondered hard on what to bring to the next circuit event, and ultimately decided that my new bugs were strong enough to give a shot. I'd done poorly in the first and second rounds with gimmick lists, trotted out my Pain Train and got a second in round 3, but one more bad result would finish me, (It's best 3 of 5), so I needed to bring a somewhat fierce list. My anti-mech Nids had been basically all I'd been playing (aside from Warmachine, sigh), so I took the mantra of bring what I'm practiced in.
I brought:
Parasite of Mortrex
Tyranid Prime w/double boneswords, poison, furious charge
Tervigon w/poison, furious charge
10 Termagants
3 Pyrovores in Spod w/twin linked deathspitter
3 Lictors
5 Ymgarl Stealers
9 Raveners w/rending claws
9 Raveners w/rending claws
15 Gargoyles
1 Tyrannofex w/rupture cannon
Top one I was matched up against a common adversary of mine. He'd brought his ultramarines and their guest captains, a list I'd battled before. His list is beautifully painted, and went onto be best painted. It was a cool battle fluff-wise also, because I'm in Hive Fleet Behemoth colors while he's in Ultramarines colors, so it looked really cool.
He had:
Shrike
Kahn w/Moondrakken
10 scouts w/CCW
10 scouts w/sniper rifles and a heavy bolter
Land Speeder Storm
10 Assault Terminators w/SSTH except for 2 lightning claws
8 Assault Terminators w/SSTH
Medium Vanguard unit with all stormshields and a variety of weapons
Mission was a fairly ridiculous thing:
Deployment: Pitched battle
Objectives: Drawfest (one each, in DZ)
Primary: take own objective
Secondary: take enemy objective
Tertiary: Score a kill with the messenger model (basically each side got one)
He won the roll to deploy, set up his guys (scouts in reserve). I set up mine in a brick in the south-center, gaunts and gargoyles out front.
Marines 1:
He moves his guys down to support his Vanguards (who infiltrated about 12" away from me behind a piece of impassible that also blocked LOS)
Bugs 1:
I make some gaunts which move up and shoot at him, nothing goes down to that or the Tyrannofex's shooting.
Marines 2:
His Vanguard come in and massacre the newly created gaunt squad, Terminators run up behind them. They all sit in front of my army.
Bugs 2:
Pyrovores come in, flame the massed Vanguard, killing a few. Another Gaunt squad is spawned, Ymgarl's come in and prepare to swarm the Vanguard. It's going to be dual gaunt squads in range of the Tervigon, a Ymgarl squad and a Ravnener squad that will be not touching any of the powerfists. I should ace them pretty hard, since they've been softed up by the flamers and shots.
They break and run. Doh! Well, they didn't get far enough to be out of the 6" of the Stealers, so I decide not to assault. Let em go. Sort of out of position now though.
Marines 3: His Terminators move in and selectively hit the units I was about to hit the Vanguard with, while the Vanguard run further away. I lose all the Termagaunts, lose the Pyrovores and lose my Ymgarl's. He ends up with one Terminator squad massacreing south while the other two hover above.
Bugs 3:
The Lictors don't come in! That means that the Vanguard will rally. Dang it. I send in my main force on the front terminators, two squads of Raveners and the Parasite (forgot about the Prime this game...dang it!)They kill all but 2 (unbelievable armor saves), while the gargoyles fly + run over them to block the counter charge. I lose the parasite and a pair of raveners.
Rest of game: He brings back his vanguard and remaining terminator squads and tears down the gargoyle screen, then gets mobbed by my army. The game devolves into a chaotic melee, with the lictors and scouts clashing as he tries to bring some reinforcements in.
Ultimately the ridiculous objectives have us both more concerned with our own goals than interfering with the enemies (since you get nothing for that unless you capture it), and the Tervigon is able to duel Kahn, ending the game in combat and with him just 3.25 away from my objective. We both get primary, neither gets secondary. He was able to score a kill with his messenger, so he gets tertiary. A great game, no doubt.
Game #2:
Vs. Eldar (Iyanden mostly)
Eldrad
Avatar
10 Wraithguard w/conceal seer
8 Harlequins
2 units of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents
2 Fire Prisms
Wraithlord
Mission: That's 'Eavy Doc (they updated for 5th edition. Why??!!)
Primary: Control more table quarters
Secondary: Have more points within 6" of the center
Tertiary: Kill enemy's lowest point unit
There's not much need to do a blow by blow of this game. Everything was in my favor. I had an army built to take out his kind of army, and then he scrubbed up hard.
Basically this is a mission where you want to be either in the center or zipping around in the corner. He turtled up and shot at me in his corner. This meant that I could spread to the other three quadrants and menace him from multiple sides. I did so with expendable units in the asssault, my primary focus was on anticipating the skimmer zoom at the end of the game. He duly attempted it exactly when it became necessary, and I duly charged the skimmers with Ravener units and tore them open. Two had already been downed by the Tyrannofex/Ymgarl's, so it was easy to swarm them properly.
I got all the points, but in all fairness to my foe he hadn't played a mission like that before, or ever against the new Nid codex. I think I'd do well in a return match, but it'd definitely be harder. The wraithguard brick and Avatar brick could make a lot of trouble if they come forward. An oddity of this match was that each of my units were basically showing off. The Ymgarl's downed a tank and locked up the enemy shooters for a round, the Pyrovores killed the Harlequins, the Parasite one shotted a Wraithlord. The only thing that wasn't showing off was one Ravener unit, which was solo'd by a nonfortuned Avatar. Go figure.
Round 3 (I'm on table 1, this is a very low scoring tournament. Only my opponent has massacred both rounds. The guy who beat me in one basically had a mutual massacre loss in two. It's weird scoring):
Vs. Nids:
Swarmlord w/one lash guard
3 Trigons
3 units of stealers, 2 have poison
2 Venomthropes
3 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes
Tervigon w/upgrades
min gaunts
Opposite table triangles
Primary: KP (need 7 more than enemy), modified 3 for HQ 1 for Troops 2 for others (including DT, so my Spod is 2...great)
Secondary: Get a troop in the enemy DZ
Tertiary: I forget
This is a serious problem. He's brought killy Nids while I've brought mobility Nids. He's crushed every enemy he's gone up against, while I'm missing a secondary and a Tertiary. So I need a decisive victory. Worst of all, he's Player A.
Player A 1: He moves up
My 1: I sort of move up a bit, spawn 3 gaunts, thereby ending my Tervigon's spawning. Great.
Player A 2: He moves up again
My 2: All my reserves come in! Ok, it's now or never in terms of go time. I bring in the Lictors as counter charge on his flank, the Tyrannofex blows away his Venomthropes (YES! Great luck there), the Gargoyles and Parasite jump up to get his sacrificial gaunt unit, thereby hopefully spawning a cloud of Ripper bases to block the center counterattack, while the Pyrovores melt a poison stealer unit and their spod kills 4 stealers (good rolling) from the center unit. The Ymgarl's put 4 wounds on his Tervigon and fold it into the gaunt slaughter so it looses by like 10 (it took one wound from a Pyrovores flamer, so it's on one left), but it makes every no retreat and survives. The ripper swarm spawn is disappointing, I get a unit of one base. goodie.
His 3: He sends two Trigons into the Gargoyles, slaughtering them as the Parasite kills the last Gaunts (another one base ripper swarm..sigh), whille simultaneously blasting away 3 of my raveners with his Tyrant guard and using his last genestealer unit to annihilate my ymgarl stealers (he gave them furious charge with the Swarmlord) His Tervigon spawns a unit of gaunts which charge the Lictors, killing one but I hit and run. He also starts the silliest fight in history as his 3 Zoeys start fighting my 3 pyrovores.
My 3: Here's the game deciding moment. I've got the Parasite in with two trigons. I'm sending in my Ravneers. If I win this fight I'm in a great position, particularly if one of the Trygons gets ID'd before it swings. My lictors finish off his tervigon, but the main fight isn't quite what I need. I kill one of the Trigons before it swings (with my ravener unit), but the other unit fails the charge, and the Parasite hits the other Tervigon twice, but doesn't roll a 6 to wound. Raveners and Trygon lock up.
The rest of the game is the death spiral that everyone's experienced. The Swarmlord makes it in alongside his heavy fighers, and I'm just too lightweight to stop the push. He's ultimately able to take the primary, due to my list's copious shedding of KP in this kind of game. I even make an insane courage when it's important (saved like 6 raveners for another turn), but the game cannot be saved.
End of tourney I'm actually still second. A lot of people mutually destructed in a bunch of these odd missions. Player A won handily, nearly twice the BP's that I had, and I was closest.
Last event of the Circuit is in 2 months, and dang is it close.
In the lead is Dash with two firsts, I'm following up with two seconds, I think Player A and a Space Wolf Player both have a first and a fourth or third...any of us could do it if the next round sees us win and the rest lose out hard. Going to be interesting times. I'm going to have to think long and hard on what my final list will be. I really want to win and defend my circuit title.
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.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals