Hello all,
Zid here again with another (albeit a bit off) battle report! What with being an old man, married, with a college aged kiddo, I have to plan out my gaming in advance... and thus, February 18th will be my next game.
My next match is against a local Marine by the name Myelz Mendoza... and being as I'm a member of the Air Force (12 years and counting!) this will be a match that will be hard fought, because I can't let a damn marine beat me! Haha, just kidding, but seriously... us armed forces members may joke about, but we are a brotherhood through and through, and for my third game this will be extremely exciting.
If your confused by the title, Myelz is having his Tyranids shipped to him from home, but hes not 100% that they will make it in time for our game... if that doesn't happen, it'll be Death Guard vs Death Guard, which will be equally as amusing I think. Without further adieu... the lists!
Death Guard
DG + Chaos (Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition) [105
PL, 1739pts]
Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [75
PL, 1293pts]
Heavy Support [16
PL, 292pts]
--------------------
Plagueburst Crawler - 2x Entropy cannon , Heavy Slugger
Plagueburst Crawler - 2x Entropy cannon, Heavy Slugger
HQ
------
Chaos Lord - Bolt pistol, Chainsword (WARLORD: ARCH CONTAMINATOR)
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour - Blades of Putrefaction, Combi-bolter, Force stave, Putrescent Vitality
Typhus - Plague Wind, Miasma of Pestilence
Elites
--------
Blightlord Terminators [14
PL, 268pts]
1x Flail of Corruption, 1x Balesword/Combi-bolter, 1x Bubotic Axe/Reaper autocannon, 2x Bubotic Axe/Combi-plasma
Fast Attack
---------------
Foetid Bloat-drone
2x Plaguespitters, Plague probe
Troops
----------
10x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun
13x Poxwalkers
13x Poxwalkers
Patrol Detachment (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [30
PL, 446pts]
Alpha Legion
HQ
-----
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour [8
PL, 130pts]
Combi-bolter, Death Hex, Force stave, Mark of Tzeentch, Warptime
Elites
-----------
Khorne Berzerkers [13
PL, 196pts]
Icon of Wrath, Berzerker Champion w/ Power maul, 6x Chainaxe and bolt pistol, 4x Chainsword and bolt pistol
Troops
----------
Chaos Cultists [9
PL, 120pts]
Selections: 30x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, Mark of Slaanesh
Total: 1739 pts, 6
CP
Tyranids
++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Tyranids) [103
PL, 1750pts] ++
HIVE FLEET BEHEMOTH
+
HQ +
Broodlord [8
PL, 162pts]: Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Psychic Scream
Hive Tyrant [11
PL, 199pts]: 2x Monstrous Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands, Power: Paroxysm, Power: Psychic Scream, Scythes of Tyran, Toxin Sacs, Warlord, Wings
Hive Tyrant [11
PL, 208pts]: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Scything Talons, Power: Catalyst, Power: The Horror, Toxin Sacs, Two Devourers with Brainleech Worms, Wings
+ Troops +
Genestealers [16
PL, 240pts]
. 20x Genestealer: 20x Rending Claws
Genestealers [16
PL, 240pts]
. 20x Genestealer: 20x Rending Claws
Tyranid Warriors [5
PL, 75pts]
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Scything Talons
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Scything Talons
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Scything Talons
Tyranid Warriors [5
PL, 75pts]
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Scything Talons
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Scything Talons
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Scything Talons
+ Elites +
Hive Guard [7
PL, 144pts]
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
+ Heavy Support +
Carnifexes [6
PL, 104pts]
. Carnifex: Adrenal Glands, Bone Mace, Monstrous Crushing Claws, Monstrous Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
Carnifexes [6
PL, 95pts]
. Carnifex: Bone Mace, Monstrous Crushing Claws, Monstrous Scything Talons
Carnifexes [6
PL, 104pts]
. Carnifex: Adrenal Glands, Bone Mace, Monstrous Crushing Claws, Monstrous Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
Mawloc [6
PL, 104pts]: Prehensile Pincer Tail
++ Total: [103
PL, 1750pts] ++
Myelz in work "neutral" Tyranids, he picked this scheme so he could change the hive fleet based on whatever he wanted to do. I like the red and brown!
Pre-analysis
Death Guard: I'm scurred...... so many genestealers! I'm super unfamiliar with the new Nids, so I'm gonna research, but theres a lot of big baddies, and a lot of small deadly gribbles... damn. And hes
CC oriented like me, so I'm gonna have to bring all my firepower to bear. This game I'm testing sneaky zerkers and a cultist blob, otherwise, its my basic list. I'm not feeling the Terminator Sorcerers much anymore, last two games they have killed exactly 0 models; maybe I need to
DS typhus? Hes also incredibly fast.
Tyranids: Myelz is extremely familiar with the Death Guard, as that is his other main army (he likes Morty Centric lists). Hes taking his nids for a whirl for the first time, so hes excited! He even bought the new codex just to get to playin with them!
Mission
We rolled SCORTCHED EARTH from Chapter Approved. Which kinda sucks because I just bought a new Objectives Deck
LOL! Oh well.
I won the roll off and we placed objectives. You can't really see them on the map, but with Dawn of War deployment we both had one objective on our part of the board, with 4 objectives scattered evenly in the middle. Sorry... *note to self: take pre-game photos*
Deployment looked like this:
Death guard spent 1
CP to infiltrate the Zerkers, keeping the Terminators in reserve as well. The Nids dropped some sort of genestealer node on the board, and kept his Mawloc and both
HT's in reserve.
Myelz won the roll for first turn, and I failed to seize, and off we went!
Tyranids Turn 1
Before the Nids move, I'm forced to infiltrate the zerkers... after some thought, I hide them behind the middle piece of terrain.
Poxwalkers gaze with dead eyes at the incoming threat....
Myelz whole turn is summed up as follows: Advance! Everything advances, except his Hive Guard. Both
HT's drop off to my left side, and his genestealers pop out of the node (I guess its used to hide from alpha strikes he said?). His Mawloc pops up and does 1
MW to my lord, and 2
MW to the
PBC on my left.
Psychic phase I roll hot and deny his Catalyst and one smite. The rest of his stuff is saved or bounces.
In the shooting phase his Hive Guard roll terribly, failing to wound my right
PBC. On my left his Dakka-rant unloads into my Drone, it does only a couple wounds. In assault he charges my Drone with his melee tyrant, and despite rolling 5 wounds, he only fails one. In combat he does another 2 wounds, leaving me at 6 left on the drone. He also kills 5 from my small cultist unit.
End of his turn, he holds 3 objectives.
Tyranids 3 -
DG 0
Death Guard Turn 1
Time to move! I pop 1
CP to give the Dead Walk Again to my right Poxwalkers.My poxwalkers shamble up. My small cultist unit moves to create a speed bump for his genestealers. The large cultist blob moves up my right side, holding two objectives. Typhus moves backward a bit, prepping a charge on the Mawloc. my Drone falls back from his tyrant, and lastly, my zerker move up the middle toward his right side stealers.
Psychic phase EVERYTHING goes off, and this gives my Terminators +1
Str/Tough, Blades, and moves them into charge range of his tyrant. I also remove the tyrants invun save with Death Hex. Good news everyone! Miasma goes up on the right poxwalkers.
Shooting... Myelz saves go on fire. Everything bounces off his Hive Tyrants (seriously... everything.,.. bounces...). I think I sneak 1 wound through? I also do 2 wound to one Carnifex. Yerp... swell. The Drone does squat to his Tyrant with its 10 shots I rolled... man :(
Onto assault; the Zerkers make it into his right stealers, the Termis make it into his Dakkarant, Typhus hits his Mawloc. I start on the left side of the field with the Terminators.... who subsequently only get 5 wounds on a tyrant with no saves essentially. Really dudes? Typhus swings and takes half the Mawlocs wounds off. And heres where I made a mistake....
ZID MISTAKE #1: I should have done the zerkers first. Myelz spends 2
CP to go first, and does a horrendous 13 normal
GS wounds, and 5 rending wounds. I, in return, fail 10 of 13 4+ saves... yep. Zerkers are wiped to the man without a swing back. That really sucked... Myelz scores first blood. I get I think 3-4 new Poxwalkers to the right squad.
Death Guard score 3 Objectives.
Tyranids 4 - Death Guard 3
Tyranids Turn 2
Myelz has a ton of momentum, so he keeps pressing. His left
GS's move up to assault one of my lords + cultists, his right
GS's move up to charge my Cultists. All three carnifexes move up, ready to kill my drone and terminators. His broodlord moves to nom on my Poxwalkers. Lastly, his winged rant flies out of
CC with my terminators, while his
CC Hive Tyrant flies to where he can get to my backfield.
Psychic phase goes better for him, he gets Catalyst off on the
CC tyrant, and gets a few smites off plinking wounds off various models.
Shooting he kills a few of the small cultist squad, and takes a few wounds off my right
PBC. His dakkarant unloads into the Blightlords, killing one.
Onto the main phase: ASSAULT! The right
GS's assault my cultists, and despite a billion shots, I kill... 2 genestealers. Yep. On the left side one Carnifex assaults the blightlords, while a second assaults the drone (who does 0 wounds) and a third assaults my Warptime lord. His winged tyrant in the back makes an 11" charge into my Chaos lord... this is bad :( Lastly, his left genestealers make it into combat with my Warptime lord + cultists. His Broodlord makes it into the right Poxwalkers. Needless to say... this is how this goes:
- His right genestealers wipe my cultists, he consolidates back onto an objective there.
- His left genestealers + carnifex wipe my Lord + cultists. He doesn't consolidate.
MYELZ MISTAKE #1: He could have consolidated into my poxwalkers, which would have been good for next turn.
- His middle carnifex wipes out the Bloat Drone
- My terminators swing wet noodles, doing exactly 0 wounds to his carnifex. In return, he kills one model....
- His hive tyrant makes 2 wounds on my Chaos lord, which I feel like hes dead...and I make BOTH invuns! HOT DOG! This ends up being huge.
- Typhus wipes out his mawloc, consolidating toward his Hive tyrant.
- Poxwalkers on the right miss a lot of attacks.
ZID MISTAKE #2: I forgot they get +1 to hit in hordes of 10 or more... woops. In the end he kills a couple walkers, and I put 2 wounds on the Broodlord.
So... much... death...
Myelz scores 2 points (top left obj and top right where his warriors are sitting).
Tyranids 6 - Death Guard 3
Death Guard Turn 2
This is... really bad. I'm down to less than half my army and I've literally killed a single model. Balls. At this point I'm visually frustrated, so I apologize
lol. Theres only one way to do this... keep on fightin! I roll for Typhuses plague ability and it kills 1 genestealer on the left.
I start with moving Typhus up enough to come around the top side of the Tyrant. This puts the walkers back into his aura. Everything else is essentially locked in combat, but I have the chaos lord fall back a bit from his tyrant.
Psychic phase, Miasma goes back onto the poxwalkers, and I cast Plague Wind on the left Genestealers... this kills 4 of them. Next, I get Blades off on the left Poxwalkers, while Vitality is blocked (go figure).
Shooting my
PBC's actually decide to work, I kill the Dakkarant, and put a few wounds on the Melee tyrant. I also shell some mortars at his Carnifexes, knocking one to 3 wounds, and knocking 2 wounds off another. Lastly, Typhuses pistol loves me, I get off 8 shots into the Left genestealers (because he didn't consolidate in) and kill another 4. Hot damn! This drops that squad to less than 10.
In assault, everyone on my left charge the genestealers there. This leaves only 7 left. In the Terminator scrum, he kills 1 more (leaving 2 terminators) and they do 2 wounds in return, leaving him with 4. The broodlord takes another wound, killing 1 or 2 more Poxwalkers. Lastly, Typhus does his thing, hitting and wounding all 4 times (thanks to Arch Contaminator!) on the Melee Flyrant! He fails 3 saves, leaving his
HT at 1 wound left!
Pre-combat
However, despite my punch back, I only score 1 point, and thats because of the Death Guard special ability.
Tyranids 6 - Death Guard 4
Tyranids Turn 3
Myelz does minimal movement, most of the stuffs locked in combat. He scoots the two unengaged carnifexes forward a bit, and falls back with the flyrant. He uses 2
CP to head his Flyrant, that goes up to 2 wounds.
MYELZ MISTAKE #2: Myelz left the large Genestealer blob on the right sitting on an objective.
Psychic phase, not much happens, he gets Catalyst back onto his Melee Flyrant. I think Psychic Scream does go off, and he also plinks 1 wound off Typhus with smite.
Shooting he does 3 wounds to the right
PBC, leaving it at 7 left.
In assault, the broodlord noodle fight continues, I get his Broodlord to 2 wounds and I FINALLY remember I hit on 4's, not 5's. I still have 11 Poxwalkers left. On the left, I kill down to 4 genestealers left in that brood. He also attempts a few charges on Typhus, but fails even with his rerolls. He does manage to kill my Nurgle sorcerer. The Terminator noodle fight culminates in just the flail left vs a 4 wound carnifex... woo...
Myelz scores 3 more points.
Tyranids 9 - Death Guard 4
Death Guard Turn 3
This is slowly looking up... My only unengaged models are my lord and Typhus. So I move typhus up a bit and the lord too. Typhuses ability kills 1 genestealer on the left.
Psychic phase sees me cast Miasma on the right poxwalkers again. I try for smite, and get it, killing his carnifex near the Poxwalker scrum (the one that attempted a charge at typhus).
Shooting sees me kill one warrior on the leftmost objective and a few genestealers on the right objective. I fail to kill the tyrant, even though 2 entropy cannons get though (he made both invuns).
Onto assault! I forget what typhus tries to do... But the broodlord scrum leaves his Lord with 1 wound left, my terminator knocks his Carnifex to 2 wounds left, and he fails to kill me. I kill all but 1 genestealer in the left combat.
Post shooting phase...
Once again, I score 1 objective.
Tyranids 9 -
DG 5
Tyranids Turn 4
Typhus is slowly grinding me back into this game, so Myelz moves to try and do something about him. Everything moves to engage him. Myelz moves the right genestealers off his objective around the poxwalker scrum toward typhus, both his carnifex and tyrant move to charge my lord. For some reason he moves the leftmost warriors off their objective, moving toward everything in the middle. He also spends 2
CP to heal his left Carnifex 3
HP.
Psychic phase sees Catalyst on the
HT again, and I block psychic scream (he failed a smite too).
Shooting his Hive Guard again fail to do much, and his Warriors pewpew the left
PBC doing 1 wound.
In assault both his Tyrant and Carnifex make it to my lord, turning him into mincemeat.
MYELZ MISTAKE #3: Had he consolidated, he could have walked into combat with the left
PBC. His genestealers make it to typhus, but due to the distance and the path they had to take, he can only get 5-6 near him. This puts them near the left Poxwalkers as well. He swings everything into typhus, but hes the man, only taking 1 wound. I swing back, and the poxwalkers kill the last of one brood, and 4-5 from the new brood (swelling their numbers!), and typhus kills a few more.
Post pile in.
Tyranids only score 2 points (1 for Warlord, 1 for obj).
Tyranids 11 - Death Guard 5
Death Guard Turn 4
Typhus... how I love thee. Everyones locked in combat.
Psychic phase sees typhus kill 3 of the large squad of genestealers with Plague Wind.
Shooting, my dice finally wake up, and I'm able to clear the carnifex, the Hive Tyrant, and both warriors on the left. Damn! I also shoot Typhuses pistol, and roll 12 shots!!!!! He kills another handful of genestealers.
On my right, the broodlord finally dies, allowing my walkers to consolidate forward. On my left, I kill all the genestealers but one, who sticks to typhus. My other poxwalkers consolidate toward the top left objective. My terminator does another 2 wounds, and the carnifex fails to kill him again (man... his invuns holding up)
Before the swing...
I score 2 points.
Tyranids 11 - Death Guard 7.
Tyranids Turn 5
We are both shocked. Typhus literally swung this game by himself; accounting for about 20 genestealers, a hive tyrant, a mawloc, and a bunch of wounds off opther stuff. Myelz is left with a Carnifex in combat, one genestealer, and a squad of warriors and Hive Guard.
But its not over! He still can win if the game ends here. He moves his Hive Guard forward, looking to put them on an objective.
Shooting he does another wound to the right
PBC, leaving it at 6 wounds left. He also puts another one on the left
PBC.
In combat his Carnifex fails to kill the last terminator again. Typhus kills the last genestealer, and consolidates forward.
Myelz scores 1 point for the back warriors.
Tyranids 12 -
DG 7
Death Guard Turn 5
Wow! What a game. Typhus is totally a permanent staple now,
lol!
But I still have a chance to lose; I know I can't table myelz, so the most I can do is try and score.
I love up my left
PBC onto the back objective to my left, while all the walkers advance to one objective. I also fall back the terminator finally.
Shooting sees me clean up the Carnifex with Smite plus some other shots, and his warriors in the back field fail all their saves, resulting in a lot of warriors blowing up.
Before firing...
Death Guard scores 3.
Tyranids 12 -
DG 10
So we read the mission, on a 3+ we continue... and myelz rolls.....
Tyranids Turn 6
He advances his Hive Guard, but he can't get them close enough to an objective.
Death Guard Turn 6
I advance my Poxwalkers onto his board side, because I want damn Linebreaker because I ALWAYS FORGET
IT.
Shooting I do a few wounds to the Hive Guard from mortars. Otherwise, its just scoring.
Death Guard score 3 points.
Tyranids 12 - Death Guard 13.
We roll again, and get a 2. Game ends, Death Guard win!
Post Game thoughts
Zid (Death Guard) - WOW! This game was so intense. I was getting frustrated early, especially after that Zerker misplay which resulted in a huge power swing. However, really, Typhus won this game. His pistol is so, so, good. Not to mention Man Reaper with Arch Contaminator support! Dudes a beast. He resulted in more mortal wounds and damage than basically anything in my army. The Terminators have failed me, once again, and after 3 games I feel like its time to shelve them for a bit... I'd like to try a 30 man
PB blob, but I need to buy some more. I'm also calling it quits trying these Entropy Cannons, the damage output is amazing, but they have to hit. And I can only imagine how much worse it is against Fliers. I think I'll be doing Spitter tanks with a Poxbringer for some
Str 8 flamer goodness.
As for the game itself, Myelz was a great opponent, and essentially he could have won several ways; not moving his warriors from their objective a turn early, remembering a couple key consolidations, and moving his Genestealers to come toward typhus one turn earlier (instead he chose to move back to an objective and sit there). Had he gotten a bulk of those stealers into Typhus, he probably wound have tabled me because I doubt the
PBC's would be able to kill 10+ genestealers bearing down on them! Hes also learning with me, so we both made some pretty big mistakes, like me forgetting that Poxwalkers hit on 4's in units of 10+ or that Poxwalkers add models if they kill infantry themselves (I was not adding models when they killed Genestealers the first couple turns). It really came down to the end, it was a nailbiter!
Myelz (tyranids)
Hive Fleet Jormungandr was the fleet i should of originally chosen, Typhus is a goddamn man, use exocrines
lol (thats what he messaged me via Facebook... short and simple)
Great battle, great fun, and I will definitely have to face Myelz again in the future; maybe we'll both make a lot less mistakes
Thanks for reading!
The arch contaminator sits back with the 
Also really happy to see Typhus go man mode and tear gak up, too often he's just a poxwalker/psycher buff bot that derdles along.
Close games are always the most fun. 
