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6/13 1850 Tyranids vs Space Wolves
Last Thursday I got in a game with my Tyranids, using my 1850 list from Crucible 2013. It was also my first game in over three months, but I'm back in the swing now thankfully. This game also served as a practice for my 1850 RTT on Saturday the 15th, but more on that later...

Feel free to check out this Batrep and many more on my blog! http://knighthammer40k.blogspot.com/2013/06/613-1850-tyranids-vs-space-wolves.html


My list:

Flyrant, Devourers, OA
Flyrant, Devourers, Hive Commander (WL: -1 to his reserves)
5 Ymgarls
5 Ymgarls
Doom in a SPod
10 gants
10 gants
20 gants
Tervigon, Toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers
Tervigon, Toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers
Tervigon, Toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers
2 Biovores

My opponents list:
Rune Priest (Prescience, Perfect Timing) (Warlord Trait: Useless)
Wolf Priest (Preferred Enemy: Monstrous Creatures)
Wolf Priest (Preferred Enemy: Monstrous Creatures)
5 Grey Hunters
10 Grey Hunters, 2 Meltas, Axe, Drop Pod
10 Grey Hunters, 2 Melta, Axe, Drop Pod
10 Grey Hunters, 2 Flamer, Axe, Drop Pod
9 Wolf Guard, Axe, 8 Combi Plasma, Drop Pod
9 Wolf Guard, Axe, 8 Combi Plasma, Drop Pod
6 Long Fangs, 5 Missiles
6 Long Fangs, 5 Missiles
Aegis line, Lascannon

My Psychic Powers: I don't fully remember, but something like this:
Flyrant: Iron Arm, ...
Flyrant: Iron Arm, ...
Tervigon: Iron Arm, ... ...
Tervigon: Endurance, ... ...
Tervigon: Endurance, Warp Speed, ...
Doom: Psychic Shriek

The Mission: Scouring: At least there are 6 objectives!

Deployment: Dawn of War

The Table: My half has a large-ish ruin to the right and bottom, theres a big central ruin, and a ruin in the top left and right (Top being his edge, bottom being mine) There are a few more scattered Hills and ruins

The objectives: There's a 2 pointer in the bottom right, and center of my DZ, and a 4 pointer to the left. On his side the 1, 3, and 3 are roughly equidistant from left to right 6" from his board edge.

To my complete dismay, he successfully gets First turn. I'm really bad at getting first turn when it counts, it seems.

Deployment Wolves: His Aegis Line is spread in the back, with both LF squads hiding, Rune Priest on the gun. 5 man GH squad is top right in a small ruin on the 3 pointer.

Deployment Nids: Biovores on the far far left, gants and Tervigon on the right. In the large ruin I hid two 'Gons, with the Third behind it. Then, I spread 10 gants to fill the space to the right inbetween the edge and the ruin, and the 10 and 20 man squads took up as much space to the left as I could.

Pregame thoughts: If I had First turn I could murder this army with cover and Iron Arm, but that doesn't matter. I'm going to have to bunker down turn 1, then use the guys left to spawn and hopefully hold off the Podding hunters long enough to get Flyrants in and wreck face.

Turn 1 Wolves: On the far right, 10 GH with Flamers come in, and kill the 10 gants there, First Blood. One plasma-squad hits a tricky DS right at the edge of the board and can actually see one of my Tervigons with no ruin. He has cover from the gants... who were just flamed away. All 8 Plasmas = Dead Tervigon. As I pick it up I realize I made a huge mistake and misplaced which Tervigon I put where... that was the one with Iron Arm! 10 Melta GH land on my left and clip away a few gants who are in Synapse. He's out of LoS with most LFs, so kills a few gants despite Night Fight.

Turn 1 Nids: My left Tervigon of two spawns 8, no doubles, but rolls Boxcars for his Endurance. Frak. He runs up towards the 10 man melta squad but keeps his base just in cover for the 5+. The 10, 8 and depleted 20 man squad all go after the GH squad. They assault, but only two make it. He's ridiculously hot on his saves, only failing 2 out of both shooting and assault and I lose combat badly. On the right, I spawn 9 but doubles out. The 9 assault the Wolf Guard, losing two to overwatch and again only kill one after freakish saves, he kills 8 of the 9 gants. The Tervigon there then assaults the Flamer squad and kills a few, no wounds back. His GH there fail LD and fall back.

Turn 2 Wolves: His reserves fail, he has nothing to shoot but two Tervigons. Thanks to LoS blocking ruin in the center, only 5 Fangs can see my Tervigon. Naturally, he hits with 5, then wounds with 5. I then fail 5 cover saves. Remember that this guy had Periled his Endurance last turn, so he's at 5 wounds left with no FnP, so promptly keels over. SONNOVABITCH! In CC those gants now have no Synapse or support on that side. He wins, and one squad survives to fall back. I do kill two more though, his saves restored to average rolling. His flamer Hunters had rallied, but elected to run away anyway.

Turn 2 Nids: Reserves all come in, aww yeah! DOOM smites the Battlefield and kills a few Hunters out of the 5 man Hunters, and the falling back Flamer-Hunters. Ymgarls jump out of the center ruin and hit the 6 man Melta squad. The other squad comes out of the top left ruin and hits a Long Fang squad. In both combats I kill two Marines and lose a Ymgarl or two, but stay locked. The Two Flyrants then come streaking in. (Remember, no Psychic Powers when you come in from Reserves :(. ) They target the two Grey Hunter squads in the back. Again, he's hot on saves... sigh. Still, he is down to one and two men in each. The last Tervigon then assaults the Wolf Guard and kills the Wolf Priest, but takes a wound. 9 gants that had fallen back last turn in the center rally and shoot a Grey Hunter before the Ymgarl assault, by the way.

Turn 3 Wolves: His reserves arrive. 10 GH come down on the far right to shoot at the Warlord Flyrant, they do nothing. The one and two man unit run from Doom and try to ground non-warlord but fail. Plasma squad drops next to Non warlord. A drop pod grounds and wounds the non warlord, who is then killed by one Long Fang squad. The Plasma now have no good targets but decide to try to kill the warlord. 0 wounds result, thank god. Ymgarls kill another Grey Hunter (down to 4) in the center combat but shockingly he cuts them all down!

Turn 3 Nids: Doom advances, zapping the one and two man squads. He's at full 10 wounds, woot! He and the Warlord multi assault the 10 man GH that just dropped in, and kill 8. They fail morale but are caught, and so held up. Tervigon takes two wounds in assault but kills a few more Wolf Guard. On the top left I kill a Fang, no losses. The 9 gants are cut off from support so I decide to shoot and assault the GH before they get gunned down. I kill one and shockingly only lose one, so we're locked.

Turn 4 Wolves: His Wolf Guard assault into the Gant/GH combat, I get murdered after killing one more Hunter. Long Fangs have nothing to do so they kill the Biovores. In CC I'm downed to two wounds on the Tervigon but he only has a few Wolf Guard left. Ymgarls and Fangs in the top left are now both at 2 models left, but I lose one in combat, then fall back!!!! Flyrant and Doom decidedly murder the Grey Hunters.

Turn 4 Nids: My Warlord swoops 24" across the Battlefield and guns down the last 2 Grey Hunters. A few scattered gants hide out of LoS on a 2 point objective in the right ruin. The Tervigon there finishes off the Wolf Guard and consolidates towards the other squad. Doom runs out of LoS on the far top right for Linebreaker. Last Ymgarl rallies and runs up towards the ruin on the top left.

Turn 5 Wolves: His shooting fails to do anything at all, until he shoots the Wolf Guard at the flying Warlord, who had suffered a few wounds, and shockingly they kill him... Crap...

Turn 5 Nids: Last Ymgarl runs into the terrain and hides out of LoS. Doom pops out, Psychic Shriek kills a single Long Fang. Gants hide in terror, and the Tervigon assaults the Grey Hunters and kills three.

Turn 6 Wolves: He finishes the Tervigon and Missiles kill the Doom.

Turn 6 Nids: My 4 remaining models cower in ruins.

Game ends! 3-3 I have a 2-pointer, and Line breaker. He has Line breaker, first Blood, and warlord.

DRAW!

Game review: Well that could have gone better. He made a stupid amount of saves early, and so I had to dedicate a lot of time into killing his troops, which left me way over exposed, and so he cut down most of my army. Still, I played the mission and eked out a draw. Stupid First Blood... I hadn't really played a Drop List before, that was nasty! Still, practice is good, and I learned from my stupid mistakes in positioning. Despite bad dice early I pulled back, and to be fair he had a few moments of bad dice as well.

Comments, questions, and concerns are welcome! Thanks for reading!

Wow, surprised you didn't win with those powers.

Drop pod armies can be good, but once you learn how to deploy against them, it really isn't too hard to beat them.

Do you think reserving the Tyrants was the right call? I would have deployed them centrally. You have enough bubble wrapping to keep them easily out of rapid-fire range and alive to cast IA on your turn. Combined with keeping your IA tervi on the inside, you should've had three IA'd monsters counter assaulting with a mean beta strike on your turn.

Still, if they opponent had more runepriest it would have been over turn1 with some luck.

I consider that tie to be a moral victory, especially since you went second.

Hmmmm.....rune priest, drop pod, 3 tervigons.....and no Jaws?!?

Your opponent made 2 crucial mistakes IMO. First was not giving his RP Jaws and putting him in the with the wolf guards. 2nd was not dropping both units of wolf guards + flamer hunters. If he could have taken out all 3 tervies on T1, it would've been game over.

hippesthippo wrote:Wow, surprised you didn't win with those powers.

Drop pod armies can be good, but once you learn how to deploy against them, it really isn't too hard to beat them.

Do you think reserving the Tyrants was the right call? I would have deployed them centrally. You have enough bubble wrapping to keep them easily out of rapid-fire range and alive to cast IA on your turn. Combined with keeping your IA tervi on the inside, you should've had three IA'd monsters counter assaulting with a mean beta strike on your turn.

It would've been very hard to keep the Tyrants out of Rapid Fire range. Because Deployment was the 12" wide DZ, if I'd put them down there would have been a roughly 3" zone I couldn't have covered that wouldve been in range to rapid fire, and he would only have to land within 6" of that zone, so basically the Flyrants would have been guaranteed dead. As to Powers, I agree, but of three models with Iron Arm, I only had one live to cast it. The Tervigon dying was just a mistake on my part. The one Flyrant failed to get above T7 every time he cast it, which meant he was vulnerable to bolters still.

Valek wrote:Still, if they opponent had more runepriest it would have been over turn1 with some luck.

I actually talked with my opponent after the game about this, he felt since he only had one RP that he'd be better twin linking the Missiles against the Flyrants. I disagree with him on that, but I didn't mind that. I think it was a case of my opponent having a plan for the RP before seeing my army, and not even thinking to change the RPs role.

jy2 wrote:I consider that tie to be a moral victory, especially since you went second.

Hmmmm.....rune priest, drop pod, 3 tervigons.....and no Jaws?!?

Your opponent made 2 crucial mistakes IMO. First was not giving his RP Jaws and putting him in the with the wolf guards. 2nd was not dropping both units of wolf guards + flamer hunters. If he could have taken out all 3 tervies on T1, it would've been game over.

I agree I was expecting him to drop both Plasma guard on turn 1, and I think that would've been better. Again, he probably should've attached the RP, but I think my opponent had pre designated roles for everything in his army and just didn't want to change them, or he could have won the game outright. Of course, if my opponent had done Drop Jaws I would have simply placed my Tervigons in the ruins on an upper level, or reserved them, but it would have been a harder game.

 jifel wrote:

jy2 wrote:I consider that tie to be a moral victory, especially since you went second.

Hmmmm.....rune priest, drop pod, 3 tervigons.....and no Jaws?!?

Your opponent made 2 crucial mistakes IMO. First was not giving his RP Jaws and putting him in the with the wolf guards. 2nd was not dropping both units of wolf guards + flamer hunters. If he could have taken out all 3 tervies on T1, it would've been game over.

I agree I was expecting him to drop both Plasma guard on turn 1, and I think that would've been better. Again, he probably should've attached the RP, but I think my opponent had pre designated roles for everything in his army and just didn't want to change them, or he could have won the game outright. Of course, if my opponent had done Drop Jaws I would have simply placed my Tervigons in the ruins on an upper level, or reserved them, but it would have been a harder game.

Yeah, same thing happened to me in a tournament. It was my necrons against his space wolves and I was deathly afraid for my wraiths (I2) from Jaws. However, my opponent just stuck with Prescience instead.

Sometimes you just have to go into a game with some flexbility and not be too set in your ways.

Good game, though I'd have also expected the Priest to take jaws and annihilate some tervis.

Though I also must ask, why did you trade the psychic power on the Doom? His default power works extremely well, especially against squads of marines on foot.