http://traceoftoxin.blogspot.com/2012/12/battle-report-taueldar-vs-tyranids-2k.html
For those too lazy to click the link, here's the text only version. Might make less sense without the pics so click the link.
Battle report: Tau/Eldar vs Tyranids 2k
Went on down to the
FLGS for my usual weekly game with my buddy Dank and we decided to make a battle report of our game. I've been playing variations on this Tyranid list for a few months and have had fantastic results. He's been playing with Eldrad to support his Tau, but having trouble finding what other Eldar units fit his playstyle. Here's the lists;
Tyranids
Warlord - Flyrant with 2x
TL devourers, old adversary
Flyrant with 2x
TL devourers, old adversary, hive commander (Swarmlord model)
3x Hive Guard
10x Ymgarls
Doom of Malan'tai in a Pod
2x Tervigon with scything talons, cluster spines, toxin sacs, adrenal glands, three powers
10x Gaunts
20x Gaunts
25x Gargoyles with toxin sacs
3x Biovores
I rolled on biomancy for everything but the doom. Not that I really cast often vs Eldrad, often it just makes me kill myself so I don't even bother. I got ONE Iron Arm/Endurance, both on the green Tervigon. Everything else was enfeeble, life leech and haemmorage. Pyschic scream on the Doom. Not a fantastic start.
Tau/Eldar list (Might be a smidge off)
Warlord - Shas'
el with burst cannon, barrage gun, iridium armor, two shield drones, multi tracker
Eldrad
6x Stealthsuits with 11 gun drones and 1 marker drone
2x3 Crisis suits with
TL missile pods, flamers and leader with blacksun
5x Harlequins with Shadowseer and 5 kisses
6x Fire warriors
2x20 Kroot
10 Dire Avengers with Exarch, bladestorm, defend
3x Broadsides with
TL Plasma, multi trackers, and two shield drones
Hammerhead with Ion Cannon, burst cannons
This list uses the shas'
el with the dire avengers so the shield drones can tank shots for them, allowing him to bladestorm and backup. The massive stealth squad is almost impossible to shoot off with a 2+ cover, and with
2d6 jump move, a massive pain to try to catch. He uses divination with Eldrad, getting the remove cover and twin link. I don't remember what else, those were all he used.
We get the Scouring, Dawn of War and no night fighting. He has first turn. There are two objectives on each flank near the corners and two along the center line, one dead center (See that crater) and one to the left about 12". Warlord traits are nothing of note.
Because he has ~60 infiltrating bodies and Eldrad's redeploy, it's almost impossible to figure out where he's actually going to deploy. He opts to outflank one kroot squad and infiltrate the others. He deploys Eldrad's unit (the broadsides), both
deathrains, harlies and the dire avengers w/ Shas'
el centrally. The Fire warriors are walking on and the ion head is slightly to the right of center. His deployment is fairly neutral and really just making me spread out so he can go hard on one flank with infiltration and redeployment.
I deploy the biovores and 10 man gaunts in the far left
LOS blocking building next to an objective, the pink Tervigon next to some ruins nearby (for synapse and to work on taking the 3 total objectives in the left half of the board). The gargoyles string across the center mostly in cover, within 12" of the left tervigon and with the warlord smack behind them. He's got the ruins for cover infront of him, not that it'll matter with Eldrad sitting with his anti-tank. I put the 20 man gaunt squad, 3 hive guard and
HC flyrant on the very far right. I leave the gaunts out of cover, hoping to draw fire from the gargs with a juicy target. I outflank the green Tervigon, as I have space on both edges where I can come in out of
LOS and shoot gaunts to objectives in the following turns.
As expected (who didn't see it coming?!?) he redeploys and infiltrates hard to my right flank, away from my biovores. He's come to fear them more than anything in my army, and it feels like he's giving them far too much respect this matchup to me. Regardless, he shifts the dire avengers and ionhead to the right with the kroot in front and the stealth suits in the middle of the board. I am confident he's looking to wipe my gargoyles out ASAP as they're always high on his threat list and in this match, another
VP.
We flip the objectives and he's got a 3 and 4 on the far right side, a 2 in the middle, and a 1-2-3 on the far left. Of course! I fail to seize and clench my butthole, this might sting!
His right flank advances, the
deathrains peek out to see the flyrant/tervigon (depending on how shooting goes), and he opens fire.
The flyrant and about half the gargs bite it. He just racked up first blood AND warlord in one go, not totally unexpected, but still painful. In this mission, while I wanted my flyrants, I'm willing to sacrifice them to keep my Tervigons up. I take a single wound on one Hive Guard, and then he jumps his stealth suits back into cover for the 2+ and to try to get away from the biovores.
Phew, that wasn't too good. I have no force projection on his
deathrains or his broadsides (for now!) and I'm already down 2-0. My biovores have no juicy targets, and he's got a ton of firepower on the right side of the board. I'm starting to think outflanking the second Tervigon might've been a bad idea!
I advance the gargs toward the stealth suits, hell, might as well try to get locked in and keep him from shooting me on his turn! The gaunts move up, the flyrant lands in the middle of the ruin, the gaunts near the biovores spread out to cover the left board edge and I spawn 6 more (1,2,3) to help herd the kroot if they come off that edge.
I start off shooting with the biovores into his stealth suit squad. I know it's a 2+ save, but they're fairly clustered and every suit that dies is 2 drones to boot. My initial shot scatters badly north, clipping a harlie and I think like 4-5 drones. My second shot does nothing, but my third is a hit and I place it smack in the middle of his suits...
Absolutely BRUTAL. He loses 4 total suits, which brings EIGHT drones with it. Usually I spend the whole game plinking shots off that unit, but he managed to roll 4 1's out of maybe 10 saves. They pass pinning and leadership, and the gargoyles do nothing with their shooting.
Meanwhile, on the right flank, the Gaunts shoot into the Kroot, the Hive Guard into the Ionhead and the flyrant into the Dire Avengers...
Another brutal set of shooting leaves his Ionhead wrecked to glances. He loses 5 Kroot and they fall back, and because of a pillar in the ruins, the Flyrant can't see the shield drone! He only takes 5 wounds from the Flyrant, but proceeds to fail 4x4+ armor saves, a 4+
LOS on the exarch and his 3+ armor. Luckily they stay put, but man...
LOS sniping really hurt him there. It was ironic because we were talking about how I should've landed further to the right to use another pillar to do the same thing, but when I checked
LOS, come to find out there was another pillar in perfect position.
The gargoyles take a few casualties trying to charge in and fail their assault. I end the turn in much higher spirits, but poor Dank is in a bad place. After a solid start to turn 1, he's suffered some serious casualties and things are not looking good.
His Kroot come in, but on the wrong side of the board, and his fire warriors walk on. At this point he's almost given up hope, but he's sticking with it. He knows he can still claim 7 points if he breaks my right flank, and with the 2 point lead, there aren't enough points on the left for me to win. He moves his harlies up right under the flyrant to assault if he can ground me, shimmies the Avengers behind the wreck to help vs the gaunts assaulting, and angles all his firepower on my Tervigon to try to remove synapse from that flank. Meanwhile the fleeing Kroot refuse to rally and avoid running off the board by a few inches.
His shooting opens up on the Tervigon with his heavy weaponry, the Gargoyles with what's left of the Stealth team and the Flyrant with whatever is left...
Another terrible turn for Dank, the Flyrant takes one wound from the Fire Warriors, but passes four grounding checks. The Tervigon takes four wounds from the combined fire of the Kroot,
Deathrains and Broadsides. Oh, and the gargoyles... make it with a single model who passes his
LD test.
By this point, Dank's morale is tanked and the game is looking dire. If my turn goes poorly, he might still be in it, but he needs a serious infusion of luck to make it.
Sadly, the Doom and Ymgarls come in. The Doom drops next to the Broadsides/
Deathrain squad in the middle, with
LOS to the other unit. The Ymgarls come in next to Eldrad and wave hello. My outflanking Tervigon decides he's not needed and chills out.
On the left flank I spawn more Gaunts but gak out on doubles, advance the
HG, Gaunts and only go 12" with the Flyrant into the center of his Fire Warriors, Kroot and Dire Avengers.
The Doom picks up a suit from the
Deathrains, who fail their
LD and run off the board. The Biovores shoot at the
Deathrains in the building, only able to hit two of them but still manage to kill one... who then flee. The Tervigon shoots his cluster spines... and lands dead on.
The game is over at this point and we call it. The Ymgarls will eat Eldrad, the Flyrant will get his warlord, the Gaunts are poised to do some damage to the Harlies, and tie them up forever if they survive.
It was a pretty bad game, with his dice just abandoning him after his first shooting. His biggest mistake was clustering up his Stealth team, but it was more of a dice thing. The Dire Avengers failing 5/5 (6/6, if you count
LOS) was brutal as well. The Ionhead moving into Hive Guard range was a mistake I doubt he'll make again. There's not much he could've done differently, as he hit only one of my flanks and was poised to do well until his army just evaporated.
All in all, it was much better than the following game. We won't say much about that game, except outflanking all of your infiltrators against two Flyrants is a pretty poor decision.
Anyways, thanks for reading, feel free to leave feedback!
Shine bright like Iyanden 
Successful Trades: 2
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
