Finally -
finally! - played my first game of 10th, so I thought I'd post up a few pics and some details of what happened. It's not a full blow-by-blow report, but hopefully some of you like it.
Was playing against my oldest friend. We've been friends 30 years this year, and he's the bastard who got me into
40k in the first place.
We had an absolute blast!
Character heavy Dark Angels (my opponent) vs Big Bug heavy Tyranids (me!). It was the first time either of us have played 10th.
The aim was to use as much from the Leviathan box as possible, and then supplement the lists up to 2050 points. Unfortunately, building lists in 10th is an inflexible unbalanced tedious chore, so both lists ended up under points, so I added a few more things and the Marines ended up at 2085, and my 'Nids at 2080. If unit sizes were flexible this would
never be a problem. Didn't end up taking everything - no reason to take the Terminator Librarian if he cannot join a unit, the Winged Prime doesn't fit with any unit in the Codex, and whilst I may not be a competitive player, even I don't take boneheaded choices like a 185 point Screamer Killer. Not when a second Haruspex was 125.
Quick lists:
Marines Tyranids This marks the first time in decades where I've played Tyranids without taking a Carnifex. Please
GW: Give the Carnifex its groove back. And its rules. And wargear. And biomorphs. And so on and so forth.
So, the table:
As you can see from the terrain layout, we were playing across a desert wasteland with lots of rock formations and a dried riverbed or road, upon which a small Imperial outpost had been constructed. An access bridge with gatehouse, a small complex, a landing pad/storage building, and a refuelling station linked via a gap in the surrounding walls. Supply containers are scattered around the wastes. This wasn't some special Starship Troopers scenario or anything like that though - it was just a straight Leviathan deck game using randomly drawn deployment zones, objectives and mission rules.
We got short table edges, which I was dreading as I always seem to get short edges when playing my 'Nids (
), but they were the weird diagonal ones so it wasn't completely awful. I won the roll for attacker/defender, so took the attacker DZ on the side nearest to the bridge into the outpost.
The mission we got was Scorched Earth, which lets you burn objectives to gain extra points. We never ended up doing that, as by the time I had units in position to do so we realised that you only score at the start of the next Command Phase... and it was already turn 5. The mission rule we got was draw two mission rules (!), and those ended up being +1
CP on a 4+ at the start of your turn if you held your home objective, and draw two secondaries and discard one each time you need to get a new one. Both were quite useful.
I umm'ed and ahh'ed about putting my Hive Tyrant in reserve, as in 8th/9th he's never survived more than a single turn, but decided to leave him on. With a mostly symmetrical army, my army was deployed symmetrically - one Haruspex, Exocrine, Psycophage, Tyrannofex and Termagant unit deployed on either side, with the Neurotyrant/Gaunts placed centrally with a unit of Barbgaunts. Tyrant went on the left flank, Rippers as far forward on the right as possible, and the third unit of Termagants was spread out across my back/back right, to screen out any dastardly Terminators! Reapers were placed on the closest no man's land objective to me, and behind the gatehouse, very wary of those Infernus Marines.
My opponent split his Ballistus Dreads up - one on either flank but kept the Techmarine with the one that was nearest to the Land Raider. Assault Intercessors and Outriders were forward on my left, Sternguard holding the objective with the fuel depot. Infernus Marines held the centre, really wedged in there. Gravis units were all in the Land Raider. Termies were all Deep Striking. Infiltrating Lieutenant ranged far ahead of the Land Raider on my right. He would prove to be annoying!
I won't give a complete play by play of everything that happened - and I certainly don't have pics throughout the battle, just after my first turn, but I'll give a brief summary of what happened:
1. I won the roll for first turn, and stormed ahead with my various Gaunts (other than the screening unit), Haruspexes, Tyrant and a unit of Barbgaunts to get them into a better position on the bridge. Shooting was largely ineffective other than managing to kill the Ballistus Dread on my left (New Model Syndrome strikes hard!). My Rippers dash directly back towards my lines to cover more area and screen against the Terminators.
2. My opponent brings his Infernus Marines and Outriders into the complex, bringing them very close to the centre objective. Land Raider and remaining Dread move up, putting fire into my right-most Tyrannofex. It does not go down.
3. Simply gob-smacked that my Tyrant is alive in turn 2, it pushes forward with the Haruspex on the left, and my leftmost Reapers leap into action and jump on the Assault Intercessors that had moved forward, killing most of them. The central ones stay put, very wary of the Infernus Marines. Highlight of the turn is putting a few wounds on the Land Raider with my Exocrine, and then rolling boxcars for damage with the Tyrannofex. The Land Raider goes up in a puff of smoke, leaving the Gravis Captain, Apothecary and full Aggressor squad well out of position.
4. My Reapers finish off the Assault Intercessors (Fight First is amazing!) as the Infernus and Outriders move forward to take the outpost, but not the central objective (just too far way). The remaining Ballistus brings the Tyrannofex that killed the Land Raider down to 3 wounds. The Aggressors link up with the infiltrating Lieutenant and then put all their firepower into my central Termagant unit. All the Boltstorm and Fragstorm launchers reduce the Gaunts to a smoking crater. At this point he's holding more objectives (haven't got my left-most Termagants to the nearest No Man's Land objective yet), and he's doing better with objectives.
5. I bite the bullet and send all my Reapers into the Infernus Marines and Outriders, with the Tyrant helping them out. Overwatch fire monsters the first Reaper unit and I think only one was left at the end. The other unit gets in fine. We proceed to fight a protracted
HTH combat that lasts for two turns and sees the Tyrant needing to fall back, all the Reapers dying, and 4 Infernus + Libby and 1 Outrider surviving. I managed to get the final Outrider with shooting eventually.
6. His Terminators come in from Deep Strike and put all their firepower into the nearby Haruspex. They fail their charge however. The remaining Infernus Marines were going to flame my left-most Termagants, who had finally reached the objective on the left, so I use their run away rule to move closer but get completely out of
LOS (I can't score the objective next turn, but they won't instantly die to massive flaming death). The Infernus Marines are forced to charge into combat, killing most of the Gaunts, but not all of them! The Aggressors + Captain + Apothecary jump on my rightmost Haruspex. The Haruspex is going to die, yet I managed to get the interrupt strat off, and the Haruspex eats 5 of the Aggressors before they can swing their power fists. The Marines still bash the big bug within an inch of its life, but it survives!
7. Left-most Haruspex moves up to take on the Terminators, leaving room for the Exocrine to shoot at the Terminators first. Softening them up, taking out 3 of them first, the Haruspex actually gets to use its tongue attack. And it hits. And wounds. And the Terminator Captain fails his save. Sure, it didn't kill him, but it was fun to use! The Haruspex then charges in and kills all the Terminators before the Captain and his Havenfall Blade slays the beast. Knowing it won't survive, the right-most Haruspex falls back in an effort to stay alive. I kill the last Aggressor, splitting the characters apart and leaving that flank with the Gravis Captain, Apothecary and Lieutenant all by themselves. The Neurotyrant moves into the centre so that it can hold the centre objective in turn 5.
8. Ballistus Dread finishes off the wounded Tyrannofex. Gaggle of characters fail to kill the last Haruspex. The Infernus Marines finish off my Gaunts with their flamers. The Vanguard Vets continue to do chip damage on my Tyrant (who is still alive!!!).
9. I take out the final Ballistus (rolled an 11 for damage this time). Haruspex goes in for round two against the characters, specifically going after the stab-happy Lieutenant after tongue lashing the Gravis Captain. The Haruspex eats the Lieutenant.
The Psychophages now have to step up, as I have fewer big bugs that before. The left-most one and the Tyrant go into the Infernus Marines. The Marines do not survive Anti-Psyker 2+. Psychophages are kinda ok against most things, but an absolute nightmare to psyker units. We were both shocked at how killy it was.
10. Captain and Apothecary pile into the Haruspex, but fail to kill it (2 wounds left!). It fails to kill the Gravis Captain, as reduction in
AP and damage from strats and other rules blunts the massive offensive capability that Mr. Chompy Mouth brings to the table. The Librarian gets back up after dying as well. Damn it!
11. I've been moving Barbgaunts at the back to cleanse table corners and score as many points as I can. I finally get a turn where I'm scoring 3 objectives, and I kill the Librarian (again!) with the Psychophage (whilst the Tyrant moves away to take an objective and complete a secondary). The Neurotyrant does the same on the centre objective. Shooting kills the Techmarine, a pair of Sternguard and the blasted Gravis Captain. Only 3 Sternguard and a Primaris Apothecary remain.
12. In his final turn, one of the Sternguard is resurrected and he fails to kill off the Tyrant with his remaining firepower.
Game ends up 4x to 5x my say. Very close. Too close.
More pics of the table/game in progress:
In the end I had lost one Haruspex (with one on 2 wounds), on Tyrannofex, all my Reapers, 20 Termagants and 2 or 3 Neurogaunts. I had killed everything on the other side bar 4 Sternguard and their attendant Apothecary. I never made it close to his home objective nor the one in no man's land closest to him.
Looking back at the battle, my opponent said his main mistake was moving forward with the Assault Intercessors. He thinks he should have left them on the home objective and moved up with the Sternguard instead, as they only really ever threatened the Hive Tyrant and even then only because it was the only thing they were ever in range/
LOS of. His other mistake was letting the Ballistus get ahead of the Techmarine, removing its Lone Operative. He got unlucky with the failed Terminator charge, and I got very bloody lucky with the 12 damage from the Rupture cannon on the Land Raider. Turning point, in my mind, was the interrupt that allowed the Haruspex to eat most of the Aggressors before they could swing. Game would've been very different if that thing had died without getting to attack.
10th certainly has its problems - some of them quite major issues, like points/list building, characters being useless when not leading units, cover/
LOS rules, and psychic powers being really dull - but the reduction in the cognitive load one has to endure compared to 9th is such a
massive improvement. For the first two turns of the game I forgot about my Detachment rule. From turn 3 onwards I remembered it every time. The last time I played 'Nids I got to the end of the game and realised there were a half dozen special rules that I had completely forgotten existed for the entire game.
It was also nice to have a game run for the entire 5 turns (no tabling on turn 2 due to super-duper 9th Ed lethality) and despite the Marines having 5 models on the table at the end of the final turn, it really came down to objectives scored. I love the missions cards, as they're always getting you to do different things, change your plans, and react to different situations. There were times where I had to give up shooting on units I really wanted to use (Hive Tyrant and Neurotyrant) to ensure that I could score objectives. Had I just gone for the kill, the points I scored off that particular secondary would have put me behind and I would have lost.
Overall, we learnt the following:
1. Haruspexes are fething monstrous.
2. Infernus Marines are
terrifying. Yes, part of that comes from the changes to Overwatch. They're no slouches in melee either, with 3 attacks each.
3. Von Ryan's Leapers are worth every point for that Fights First ability. Yes, all of them died in the end, but they allowed me to keep the Infernus Marines from shooting for the middle of the game. They probably would've come out on top if not for...
4. ... the Outriders. Outriders are absurdly hard to kill. We were both shocked by how good they turned out to be.
5. I was worried that Psychophage was a bit of a waste, as for the first three turns they hung back and acted as
FNP aura-givers. But after the first Haruspex went down, and I was forced to fall back with second lest it die before I could swing, and with the Reapers long dead dead, the two of them had to get to work. They're not mainline big bugs, but as a support or mop-up force they're fantastic... unless the opponent has an attached Psyker, in which case they are
death incarnate.
6. The Lieutenant w/Combi-Weapon might be the oddest duck in that Leviathan box. I included him simply because he was part of the box, but neither of us expected much from him. Dude's a murder machine. Yes, he's fighting his preferred target (Tyranids) and wouldn't be anywhere near as effective against literally anyone else, but because he was fighting Tyranids I could not ignore him. When he very easily wounded my Haruspex, I made a point of singling him out and eating him!
Can't wait for the next game, and I haven't had that thought for a long long time.
