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http://knighthammer40k.blogspot.com/2012/12/121-rtt-game-3-nids-vs-csm-with-black.html

Sorry for the delay guys! It's been one of those weeks. Still, here comes my last batrep of the RTT! At this point, I am 2-0 on the day, coming off of my first game against Chaos Space Marines. Of course, round 3 I draw them again! This game was against Steve, a fellow blogger, and the TO of BeakyCon! Steve is a great guy and player, and a BOLS writer, and I'd highly reccomend both his blog, and his tournament. I can guarentee that I'll be at Beaky Con 2013.

His blog

Here's his list:

Kharne (warlord)
Winged Daemon Prince with Blind Axe and Power Armor
6 Khornate Marine with flamer and a LC/Fist Champ, and icon of wrath
7 Berzerkers, Fist/LC, Icon of Wrath
Land Raider
Land Raider
Heldrake with Hades Autocannon

5 Bloodcrushers
Bloodcrusher Herald with Blessing of the Blood God
12 Bloodletters

My list, same as last 2 of course:

Flyrant, 2x Devourers, Hive Commander (warlord)
Flyrant, 2x Devourers, Old Adversary
3 Hive Guard
5 Ymgarls
5 Ymgarls
Doom
-Spore Pod
10 gants
10 gants
Tervigon toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers
Tervigon toxin/Adrenal, 3 powers
Trygon
Trygon

The Mission: 4 objectives, Dawn of War deployment, Night Fight turn 1.

The board: There's random, irrelevant stuff to the left. There's one very large building in the middle, slighly right, and then a ruin in the bottom right from my POV, plus the top right has two small close together ruins with a small wall in front.

The objectives: Two are in the two buildings clsoer to me, so center and right. Another is middle, but close to the top board edge, and the last is top and right by a small wall.

Warlord traits: Mine may've been the Night Fight? If not, it was useless. Opponent's was Kharn's trait, which I believe is "His unit hates everything"

Psychic Powers: (my favorite part!)

Fyrant 1: Smite, Warpspeed
Flyrant 2: Smite, Life Leech
Tervigon 1: Iron Arm, Warp Speed, Life Leech
Tervigon 2: Iron Arm, enfeeble, endurance.
Doom: Psychic Shreik

I have turn 1, as forced by my opponent.

Deployment Nids: Each Tervigon, and 10 gants, claims a ruin as their own. Trygons start in my backfield, Doom is in reserve. Both Flyrants also chilling behind Buildings.

Deployment Khorne: Two Land Raiders in the far top right, all else is reserved.

My Game Plan: I figure that if I advance my Tyrants and Trygons, he won't be able to punch through and get to my objectives. The fact that he has troops as assault units makes me confident, as it's easy to prioritize. Kill the Infantry! I want to hit his middle, and contest the top right objective as it's a bit closer. If he holds back a troop for the far middle one, he'll have less killing power. Fine by me!

Turn 1 Nids: I advance. Flyrants fly. Psychic powers all over.

Turn 1 Khorne: Crushers/herald lands by the top right objective, in a fairly open area. Land Raiders plink a wound off something I think.

Turn 2 Nids: Ymgarls come out of center ruin, and run at the Blood crushers. One Flyrant makes a beeline for his table edge, I stop just short, and just in 18" of his crushers, also with cover from the Raiders. The other flies straight up and shoots the Crushers. After Hive Guard, both Tyrants,both Tervigons, one trygon, and a few gants chip in (That's 6 strength 8, 24 strength 6, 14 Strength 5 and a few Strength 4 shots), he's down to 1 crusher and the herald. Oh, and the Doom landed next to them too, he's at 6 wounds ish. Ymgarls assault, he loses both models before swinging. First Blood to me!

Turn 2 Chaos: Heldrake comes on in, Vector Striking the Flyrant. I lose two wounds. One Raider pivots to shoot the same Flyrant. He rolls boxcars with the Lascannons... I die despite cover. There goes my warlord. His Drake shoots and kills a couple of Ymgarls. Bloodletters come in, but scatter close to the Doom... he loses one.

Turn 3 Nids: I shoot the crap out of the bloodletters, but they pass Dooms check (both!) and only lose three from other wounds. Flyrant pounds the Drake but is laughed off by it's 5++ invulnerable... damn! Ymgarls then assault the Bloodletters... or not. I fail both charges... Hive Guard Penetrate the Heldrake, only for that 5++ to thwart me.

Turn 3 Chaos: Land Raider shooting wounds a Flyrant twice, and a vector Strike kills a wounded Trygon (the Drake flies off) The other Land Raider finishes off the smaller genestealer squad. The full 5 man squad is charged by the Bloodletters, I kill 4 and lose none, thanks to some sub-par rolling and Toughness 5.

Turn 4 Nids: The wounded Flyrant is boned and I know it. He charges the Zerkers Land Raider and destroys it, killing 2. That'll keep them far away at least! Stealers finish off the 'letters. he last Trygon is advancing still. One Tervi perils an Iron Arm check.

Turn 4 Khorne: His DPrince comes in the left, eyeing that objective. Berzerker and Heldrake shooting nuke the Ymgarls, but only after the Dragon Vector Strikes and kills my Flyrant. Damnation! The Raider's shooting bounces off the Doom. What a boss.

Turn 5 Nids: I spawn, to wrap both objectives in two units. My T8 Tervigon heads towards the DPrince warily. I know I can ID him if I survive his swings, I just need to hope he can't punch through 6 Toughness 8 wounds. I try to shoot him, but am out of range with the Tervigon. A glance on the Heldrake from my Hive Guard is ignored. The Doom runs at the Berzerkers, kills two but fails his charge... Stupid difficult terrain.

Turn 5 Chaos: His DPrince advances towards my Tervigon but rolls a 4 to charge, failing. He was at least 6" away. Land Raider shooting and Kharn's pistol nip a few Trygon wounds, as does a Vector Strike, before Kharn charges and mangles my poor Trygon...

If the game ends now, I win, 2 objectives to 0!

It doesn't.

Turn 6 Nids: I enfeeble the Daemon Prince. Hive Guard blow him to hell. Doom assaults Kharn, and some gants on the right advance and run up. The Doom takes a wound (down to 9 from various wounds at this point) and then promptly instant kills Kharn (Warlord). The Doom. He's a badass.

Turn 6 Chaos: I lose a few gants to the drake. The last Raider tank shocks and shoots the Doom with lascannons at point blank. He live. The Zerkers run onto his far back objective. His CSM disembark from the raider and are on that objective, and flame the gants down to 3 models, but it is contested by the Doom.

If the game ends, I am up, 2-1 objectives.

It doesn't... sigh.

Turn 7 Nids: I shoot the CSM, with both Tervigons, 3 Hive Guard, and the gants. Finally, after the Doom (what a boss), he is down to 1 model, the Sarge. I charge with gants and Doom. He challenges, and the Doom accepts (mistake, I should have let him kill the gants and let him be tied up by a fearless Doom.) Anyways, the Doom wound him three times, but he makes the saves and I am instant killed by the Fist. Drat! I then find that my gants are 12.1" away from my Tervigon... stupid, stupid, stupid. They fail of course, having lost combat by 9 or 10 wounds...

Turn 7: Nothing happens. His troops have 2 objectives and he can't shoot me off mine.

Game ends: 2 objectives each, we each have slay the Warlord and I have First Blood: 8-7, victory to the Hive Mind!

Final: I feel like I did a lot of damage to his units, as he only had 2 (Heavily!) depleted squads left, plus a raider and Drake. Buy, that Heldrake was a Pain! I thought my one Flyrant would be enough to kill it, then he was shot down and my other wasn't in position for a rear armor shot before being downed. Next time, I'm taking it out ASAP! A very close game, this really shows the value of playing to the mission, and of the secondary objetives! I certainly had more left, my Hive Guard and both Tervigons, plus 3 gant squads were not going to be removed from my objectives, but my opponent played the mission and squeaked out 2 objectives via 4 models. That's all that he needed too though! This was a very, very close game, and my opponent made it a heck of a match.

I ended up winning the RTT, and took home a nice shiny Venerable Dread! Conversions upcoming...

Coincidentally, my opponent has also made a Batrep! think it's fun to compare them, there a few small differences, which just goes to show that things are never quite accurate. Still, differences are minimal. If it was a glance or a Pen that was ignored hardly matters! I do know though that I never had a chance to take a shot at his Champion after the Doom died, so I believe that was turn 7.

The other side of the coin

Comments and concerns are appreciated and welcome! Tactics and more Batreps are in my blog, see link below! Thanks for reading!

Wow....I can't believe you almost lost/drew to his list. He was definitely an underdog IMO.

This game was almost an opposite of one of my early games against against Chaos. In your game, 1 heldrake killed 2 flyrants. In my game, my 1 flyrant killed 2 heldrakes. Lol. (BTW, I do have a battle report of that game in my link below).

 jy2 wrote:
Wow....I can't believe you almost lost/drew to his list. He was definitely an underdog IMO.

I for one have noticed that BBF often seems to use lists that appear unoptimized or otherwise bad. However, he still has a good overall record. I think that, like many experienced tournament players, he is able to see potential in units that otherwise seem weak and play strongly even in a suboptimal matchup.

This sounds like a close game, with many clutch moments on both sides. I especially liked that there were battle reports from both players, as it is interesting to see how the different generals thought about the match! Good show for sure.

I would hesitate to underestimate an opponent like that... Kingsley hit it on the head, he can be dangerous even with a "subpar" list, according to Internet definitions. And yes the game was close, but once got first blood I didn't ever feel like I was in danger of losing. I had a 1 point advantage there, and I knew I could hold on to my two objectives.

I'm not knocking on BBF's generalship. The fact that the game remained close was a testament to his skill (and a little luck). However, I don't think his list is competitive and here's why (from our conversation on Frontlinegaming's blog):

jy2:

1. Poor shooting.

2. Low mobility. The DP and deepstriking daemons are ok, but land raiders aren’t very mobile….considering you can’t disembark from it if it moves more than 6″.

3. Only 3 troop choices at 2K?

4. Assault is ok but still isn’t good enough to out-assault some of the other more assaulty armies. Will have problems against some of the more assaulty deathstar units out there.

5. The DP isn’t a competitive unit. While the Khorne DP is killy, he is just too fragile and will not survive any concentrated effort against him shooting-wise.

6. You will live and die by the LR’s. If the opponent does not have the tools to take on the LR, then you have a chance. If they do, then you are a constant underdog. Either ways, you will really by susceptible to list mis-matches.

7. Most balanced TAC lists should have a way to deal with those LR’s.

8. You are playing an assault army in a game where the core ruleset favors shooting. As such, assault armies will inherently be at a slight disadvantage against the more shooty armies.

9. Lack of resiliency on your scoring units. Your offense relies on assault by your troops. As such, you must almost always expose them and thusly put them at risk. Your scoring units don’t have the resiliency to survive out in the open for very long. Yes, they may wipe out the unit they assault, but don’t expect them to last too much longer after that.

10. Challenges. They force you to over-spend and get both LC’s and PF’s for your sergeant. Sorry, but your sergeant is still going to die against other characters.

While I think the army can still do well, I just can’t see it performing well enough on a consistent basis against caliber opponents with more balanced lists in a competitive environment like a GT.


BBF:

I’ve had peop tell me in the past that some of my lists aren’t competitive. This one is light on troops and they have to put themselves in harm’s way… In objective based games I focus on killing my opponent’s scoring units. I think you’re wrong about the DP and land raiders.

Thanks for the feedback.

jy2:

No prob.

To be fair, I may be slightly biased. IMO Chaos don’t tend to do as well against the Xenos races than they do against other Imperial armies, and my armies tend to be able to handle 1 DP and the 2 land raiders without too much difficulty. Heck, I usually just ignore the LR and dare the guys inside to come out and get killed by my forces. But that’s just me.

Anyways, congrats for doing so well against an army which I felt should have given you more trouble.

BBF:

The Tyranid player is very good and has lots of experience with his list. I’ve only been playing my list for two weeks now. He didn’t really have anything in his army that could touch my raiders unless he charged them with an MC which as you saw in the batrep was a sacrifice (mistake IMO). My Prince came in late… If he had been able to charge the Tervigon and roll high for his daemon weapon test he would have probably killed it and I would have won… It was just that close.

The army is actually highly mobile – two land raiders, Prince and Heldrake. The daemon units deep strike so I don’t think mobility is a problem for them.

I am going to switch out the herald and crushers for a Bloodthirster and use the left over points to take more Bloodletters.

Many armies you see now will struggle versus AV14 plus a lot of armies now are designed around mostly shooting and are weak in melee which this list can exploit, which it was designed to do.

Underestimate at your own peril… Lol !

I believe his list could use a little tweaking, but it's not far off. I also support the use of Land Raiders, but this may be meta-dependant. I would think though that he needed to trim down the Daemons, and add a small cultist unit for backfield objective fun. The Crushers got wrecked way, way too easily in my mind, for the points they must have costed.

Keep the Land Raiders I say, but perhaps trim down the Champions for points, and I think a BaleFlamer on the turkey would've helped here... might as well fill the Raiders if youre going to use them, so I'd perhaps drop the Khorne Daemons for full squads in raiders and scoring cultists, plus a little Fire Support. Alternatively, some fast moving units like Bikers would've been great for keeping the Daemons company when they DS in, they were a bit lonely out front...